


I Never Minded Being On My Own

by SolarMorrigan



Category: Milo Murphy's Law
Genre: Dakota's past, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Platonic Bed Sharing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, and non-platonic bed sharing, kind of?, spans pre-series through The Phineas and Ferb Effect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-11 09:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18427733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarMorrigan/pseuds/SolarMorrigan
Summary: Balthazar Cavendish, newly graduated recruit for the Bureau of Time Travel, is assigned Vincent Dakota as his first ever time travel partner. The rest is history (mostly because they spend a good deal of their time in the past)





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> I swear, this started out as an idea for maybe two scenes. It ended up turning into A Whole Thing with a bunch of headcanons and ideas for relationship development? I dunno. I've been working on this for a few weeks and I'm going to put it out now before I decide it needs more work and it never sees the light of day. Story title came from "Wish That You Were Here" by Florence + The Machine, which is a Dakavendish song if I've ever heard one
> 
> This story is complete and will update weekly. Please watch the tags, I'll be adding more as I add chapters. Self-beta'd, so if anyone sees glaring errors, please feel free to let me know
> 
> Enjoy??

Mr. Block was an intimidating individual, Cavendish would readily admit. However, given time, he was sure he would win his new boss’ confidence and regard; it would just take some hard work – something Cavendish had no trouble putting forth.

And there was no time like the present to get started.

Cavendish examined the contents of the folder Mr. Block had handed him with a curt, “Welcome to the bureau. Don’t fuck it up.” Inside was the standard paraphernalia for a new agent, a map of the facility, the location of his new office, and—most nerve-wrackingly—his assigned partner.

Cavendish would be the first to admit that he wasn’t a great lover of people. They were messy, unpredictable, and confusing; he hadn’t won many friends at the academy, but he’d been too busy with his training to really care. One’s partner, however – that was different.

Bureau-assigned partners shared an office; a vehicle; and, frequently, living quarters. They were deployed to different time periods together, completed missions together, and depended on one another for safety. One’s partner was, at times, one’s only link to one’s native time, and could be the only other person who might remember a timeline before Bureau-sanctioned corrections were applied.

Your partner was your lifeline.

Cavendish sincerely hoped he and—he glanced at the paper again—Agent Vincent Dakota would be able to get along.

He only lost his way once before making to the office (it was hardly his fault the Bureau facility was laid out in such a labyrinthine manner, but he was sure he would be able to navigate it more effectively with exposure), and paused outside the door to take a breath.

No need to be nervous; this was only the person he would be spending almost all of his time around for the foreseeable future (or the foreseeable past, as the case may be).

Right.

Cavendish hit the access button and opened the door.

“Tiny” was a generous way to describe the office. There was room for a filing cabinet, two desks, and two chairs. The filing cabinet, a sad and dented little thing, was jammed into the corner by the door and the desks only fit pushed together in the middle of the room, each as scarred and coffee-ringed as the other. One of them was already occupied.

The agent—and he must have been, he was wearing the same black and red uniform Cavendish had excitedly donned earlier that morning—was occupied with something on a tablet and did not seem to have noticed the door’s quiet slide open. Cavendish cleared his throat.

Without even looking up from the tablet, the agent raised a hand in brief greeting. “How’s it hangin’?”

Cavendish blinked, somewhat taken aback by the casual reception. “I beg your pardon?”

The sound of another voice seemed to snap the other agent back into focus. “Sorry, got kinda distracted,” he said, placing the tablet on the desk in front of him.

Well, perhaps this agent was a deep thinker.

“Quite alright,” Cavendish waved off the apology. “Are you Agent Dakota?”

“Eh, just call me Dakota. Or Vinnie, if you want, but you can drop the “agent” bit.” Dakota extended his hand. “And that’d make you Balthazar Cavendish, am I right? Hell of a name you got there, man.”

“Yes, well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Dakota,” Cavendish took Dakota’s hand, uncertain of what else to say to the onslaught of introduction.

“Likewise,” Dakota grinned as he spoke, and it was such a genuine expression that Cavendish found himself smiling back.

Despite having ignored Cavendish for the first few moments he had been in the office, there was something oddly charismatic about Dakota. Though it wasn’t quite his looks so much as it was his general demeanor, he was a handsome enough man, Cavendish thought; his nose was a bit large for his face, but it lent a certain charm to his appearance. On top of his nose, puzzlingly, rested a clunky pair of tinted glasses – Cavendish would have thought those went against the dress code.

Overall, from the tips of his curly hair, to the slightly scuffed toes of his uniform boots, Dakota exuded a sort of laidback confidence that Cavendish found encouraging. Here was an agent with self-assurance, but without any apparent arrogance – here, Cavendish hoped, was an agent who would aid him in reaching his high ambitions.

“So, you just graduated from the academy, huh?” Dakota asked, returning to the desk he’d apparently claimed for his own.

“I did, yes.” Cavendish nodded, moving towards the empty desk on the left side of the room.

“Well, congrats. Welcome to the bureau,” Dakota said, imparting the congratulations with far more warmth than Mr. Block had (though the fact he hadn’t followed it with a warning not to bungle things was likely in aid of that impression).

“Thank you. And how long have you been a time traveler?” Cavendish asked.

An odd look passed over Dakota’s face, something almost startled, before he settled back into his easygoing smile. “Kind of an oxymoron, that question,” he teased. “Like, asking someone without a fixed point in time how long they’ve been doing anything is kind of a tough one.”

“Oh,” Cavendish shook his head, cheeks heating as the silliness of his question dawned on him, “of course, I’m sorry. I only–”

“Relax, Cavendish, I’m just givin’ you a hard time. Everyone asks that question at the start,” Dakota assured him.

“Did you?” Cavendish couldn’t help but ask.

Dakota chuckled. “Every chance I got. I thought it was pretty funny.”

Cavendish wasn’t altogether sure how it was funny, but he offered Dakota a small smile anyway.

“But nah, in the native timeline, I guess it’s been a while since I joined. And I’ve totally lost track of how long it’s been in the field.” Dakota shrugged. “Was jumpin’ around the timestream a lot for a while, there.”

Cavendish’s interested perked up a bit; his new partner was experienced, it seemed – yet his uniform indicated he was still a third-class agent. Interesting.

“Oh? That sounds exciting,” Cavendish said, leaning across his desk a bit to show he was engaged.

Dakota simply shrugged again. “Eh, I guess. Nothin’ to get into right now. We should hash out a few details, since we’re gonna be working together.”

“What sorts of details?”

“Nothin’ that big. Strengths and weaknesses, I guess; what time periods you’re most familiar with, how comfortable you are drivin’ a time vehicle…”

“Oh, and a theme!”

Dakota looked at Cavendish, brows furrowed. “A theme?”

“Yes, an agreed-upon time period from which to base our state of dress,” Cavendish expounded. “A few of the pairs of time agents who came to speak to our classes at the academy mentioned it.”

“Well, that’s not exactly…” Dakota trailed off, apparently considering it. “Actually, yeah, y’know what? Let’s pick a theme. What era were you thinkin’?”

“Oh, well,” Cavendish hadn’t been expecting to have first choice of era, and was pleasantly surprised, “what about the ‘70’s? That decade had quite a classic look.”

Grinning, seeming pleased with the choice, Dakota nodded. “Sounds good to me, man. ‘70’s it is.”

Cavendish beamed. This partnership was off to a swimming start.

-/-/-

This partnership, Cavendish decided, was a test.

It had to be.

A test of his abilities to lead, a test of his abilities under pressure, a test of his abilities as an agent…

“Hey, Cav, you seen our swanky new ride?”

…a test of his patience.

“Give me those,” Cavendish snapped, snatching the keys to the time machine—the _brand-new_ time machine—out of Dakota’s hand.

Dakota held his hands up in a placating gesture that did very little, as his face was still amused.

“You know they only gave us this car because it suits our cover, don’t you?” Cavendish asked waspishly.

“I can live with that,” Dakota replied evenly. “Seriously, have you seen it yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Well head down to the garage and take a look. I’ve gotta change; I’ll meet you down there.”

“Change?”

“Yeah, apparently they don’t want me wearin’ my usual getup for this mission.”

“I can’t imagine why…”

“Right?” Dakota completely blew past Cavendish’s sarcasm, lifting a garment bag that had previously escaped Cavendish’s notice. “Anyway, you’ve already got a suit, but they decided I needed one, too. So if you’re plannin’ on driving–”

“I am, thank you.”

“–then go down and adjust all the settings and whatever. I’ll be there in a few.”

At the very least, Cavendish would admit that Dakota had quickly learned his preferences, even if he didn’t always accommodate them.

“Alright, but don’t be long,” Cavendish admonished before exiting the office.

Six months of partnership had been enough for Dakota to learn that Cavendish was very particular; he preferred to adhere to a schedule, he liked the settings in the time machine to fixed to certain specifications, and he was happiest when everything was running smoothly.

Six months of partnership had been enough for Cavendish to learn that Dakota was exactly none of those things. Dakota was a being of chaos who cared little for schedules, considered orders to be more like guidelines, and whose go-with-the-flow attitude was going to drive Cavendish mad sooner rather than later if he had to continue to put up with it.

Cavendish had attempted to request a new partner, of course, not long after he realized Dakota’s laidback demeanor was less confidence in his own professional abilities and more a lackadaisical attitude towards life in general, but it had been denied. He had hope, though, for this new assignment; it was a bit more high-profile than the minor assignments they’d been receiving while stationed in the 2080’s, if only just. If they completed this one successfully, there was a chance Mr. Block might entertain the idea of assigning Cavendish a new, more competent partner.

(Or at least start entertaining the idea that Cavendish himself was perfectly competent.)

Mr. Block had made it perfectly clear that they were only being given this mission because every other team was engaged with more important matters, but Cavendish didn’t care. They would take the mission, they would ace it, and they (or at least Cavendish, who actually _cared_ about his career at the bureau) would be on their way to bigger and better assignments.

The parking garage beneath the building they were renting office space in was as dingy and unsettling as ever, and Cavendish glanced around for a car that didn’t seem to belong, clicking the “lock” button on the key fob and keeping an eye out for flashing headlights.

When he spotted them, he almost didn’t believe he was looking at the right vehicle. He pushed the button one more time for good measure, and the car gave a corresponding beep and flash. It really was the right one, and it was—how had Dakota put it?— _swanky_ , indeed.

It was new and sleek and modern and _red_. Cavendish fell a little in love just looking at it.

He’d just barely begun his inspection—standard safety features, more precise time settings, _inter-time period radio_ —when a voice outside the car made him jump.

“Nice, right?”

Cavendish stuck his head back out the driver’s side door and was, for the second time that day, uncertain he was looking at the right thing – or, more specifically, the right person.

The suit the bureau had sent along for Dakota to wear was plain but well-cut; more modern than Cavendish’s own, but a little timeless in its simplicity. It streamlined his stocky build, emphasized the set of his shoulders, and made him look more put-together than Cavendish had seen him since that first week they were partners, when he was still half-adhering to the agency dress code. He looked good.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that he’d opted to keep his chunky ‘70’s-style sunglasses, Cavendish might not have been sure he was looking at Dakota at all.

“Cav? You in there?” Dakota asked, waving a hand in front of Cavendish’s face.

No, definitely Dakota.

“Stop that,” Cavendish huffed, shoving Dakota’s hand away. “You weren’t wrong about the time machine. It’s lovely.”

“Right? You can drive us there, but I wanna drive home. Deal?” Dakota asked, leaning against the side of the car.

“Yes, fine. Get off of there, you’re going to scuff it. Or ruin your suit,” Cavendish chided.

“Eh,” Dakota shrugged, pushing off the car and rounding it to get in on the passenger side, “the suit, I’m not so worried about.”

“Well, you ought to be. It’s a nice suit.”

“I guess. Not really “me,” though.”

Cavendish tsked. “You ought to take more pride in your appearance. You look good like this.”

“Yeah?” Something in his tone made Cavendish look over; Dakota was smiling at him, sunny and pleased.

“Well,” Cavendish cleared his throat, “yes. As I said, it’s a nice suit. You look the part for the evening, and I won’t have to be embarrassed to be seen at this high-class event with you.”

“Well,” Dakota echoed, still grinning, “thanks. But I’ll leave the suits to you; you make ‘em look better than I ever could.”

“A good suit goes a long way,” Cavendish agreed, suddenly eager to be off the topic. “What year are we going to, again?”

“Uh… 2121,” Dakota said, pulling the mission file off the dashboard to read from. “Tell me when you’re good for the coordinates.”

Cavendish started up the time machine, listening to the thrum of the engine with satisfaction before signaling for Dakota to read off the coordinates. They had a mission to attend to.

-/-/-

By all accounts, the party was a lavish one, and even if Cavendish and Dakota’s intended purpose there wasn’t altogether important, the setting certainly made it feel that way.

The date was December 31st, 2121, and they were in attendance at one of the most exclusive parties of the decade – the unveiling of Earth’s second moon.

It wasn’t really a _moon_ they were launching but a luxury space station that would be housing an elite fraction of Earth’s population, but due to its appearance and position orbiting around the planet, it had gained a popular title as the second moon (occasionally, Moon 2.0). Its construction was finally complete, and the company that had funded it was hosting a large party to celebrate – and to send off the rich clients who could afford to go live in lunar luxury. Shortly after ringing in the year 2122, shuttles would leave for the station, ferrying the prospective inhabitants to their new home beyond the atmosphere.

There were a lot of things that could go wrong at such an important event; one of the shuttles could malfunction, there could be sabotage, subterfuge, assassination attempts on any one of the numerous important guests – but Cavendish and Dakota weren’t there to prevent any of that.

They were, in fact, there to ensure that the parents of a minor pop star met and got together at the party.

Though, if one were to ask Dakota, they were apparently there for the hors d’oeuvres.

“Can you not stop stuffing your face for five minutes?” Cavendish hissed.

“What? They’ve got such good stuff. And it’s _free,”_ Dakota insisted, as if this in any way excused his behavior.

“I don’t care, we’re on the job. Try to be _professional.”_

“Maybe I’m just blending in, huh? I mean, anyone who’s _not_ taking the opportunity get at the buffet is gonna stick out. Maybe _you_ should be professional by havin’ a bite to eat.”

“Dakota, that makes no sense.”

“Nah, I’m onto something. Look, that guy?” Dakota gestured vaguely towards a towering man in an expensive, dark suit, short-cropped hair, and a sleek pair of sunglasses.

“What about him?” Cavendish asked, attempting to stare at the man without appearing to actually be staring.

“He’s not here as a guest, he’s here as a bodyguard. Standin’ all stiff, real close to that dude in the red dress, watchin’ the room same as we are…” Dakota listed off; Cavendish was almost impressed with the observations until Dakota continued, “all’a that could just mean he’s uncomfortable or doesn’t want anyone near his date, except he’s _also_ not eatin’ anything.”

“Really? That’s the deciding factor?” Cavendish scoffed.

“Yep. That, and he’s wearin’ shades inside at night.” Dakota shrugged.

_“You’re_ wearing sunglasses inside at night,” Cavendish reminded him.

“And that’s why I gotta eat,” Dakota said, pointing a triumphant finger at Cavendish before shoving another stuffed mushroom into his mouth.

Cavendish spent a shameful 30 seconds attempting to wrap his head around Dakota’s logic before shaking the conversation out of his head with a scowl. “Look, have you seen either of our targets, or not?”

“Not yet.” Dakota shook his head; to his credit, he was surveying the crowd behind Cavendish as he spoke.

“Hm. I haven’t had much luck, either. Perhaps they’re not here with the main crowd; they may be over at the observatory,” Cavendish suggested.

“Maybe. We could… go…” Dakota trailed off, eyes narrowing behind tinted lenses. “What the fuck?”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Cavendish demanded, only to realize Dakota likely wasn’t speaking to him – he wasn’t actually looking at him, but at something behind him.

Cavendish turned, attempting to follow Dakota’s line of sight, but saw nothing out of the ordinary going on in the extravagantly decorated room beyond some questionable fashion choices and dance techniques. “What is it? Did you spot one of them?”

“No, uh – no, I thought I saw my brother,” Dakota said quickly.

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Cavendish commented, turning back towards Dakota with brows raised in curiosity.

“Right? That’s why it’s weird,” Dakota replied, giving an awkward sort of laugh. “Hey, I gotta use the can before we head over to the observatory, okay? Be right back.”

_“Now?”_

Dakota was already on his way towards the other side of the room. “Just real quick!” He called without turning back, breaking into a bit of a jog.

“Shouldn’t have held it that long if you have to go so badly,” Cavendish grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest and settling in to wait.

Looking out the window, Cavendish could see the rest of the compound laid out over sprawling grounds; normally, outside guests were permitted only the visitor’s building, where the party was being held, but an exception had been made for the momentous occasion and a lovely path had been landscaped between this building and the observatory, where guests were allowed to go and have a closer look at the features of the station orbiting Earth.

The weather was warm in this part of the world, even this late in December, and the rain that had been coming down at the start of the evening had cleared up, leaving a beautifully clear evening. Cavendish was sure the walk up to the observatory would be perfectly pleasant. Although–

Well, they did want to get up to the observatory and locate their targets as quickly as possible, didn’t they?

The keys to the time machine sat heavily in Cavendish’s trouser pocket, practically begging to be reunited with the ignition. It likely wouldn’t be terribly difficult to convince Dakota to take the vehicle down to the observatory rather than walking. Cavendish was so lost in thoughts of how best to do so that he hardly noticed the time passing, and Dakota very nearly startled him when he returned.

Then Cavendish got a good look at him and decided to be startled, after all. “Good heavens, what happened to you?”

Dakota, who had already been on the verge of speaking, was brought up short by the unexpected question. “Huh?”

He looked down at himself and noticed, seemingly for the first time, how dusty and rumpled his suit had become in his absence. “Oh, I, uh,” Dakota stuttered, attempting to brush some of the dust from his jacket, “walked into a broom cupboard. Instead’a the bathroom. Yeah, dumb mistake, it was dusty as hell in there.”

“You’re _bleeding,_ ” Cavendish pointed out, gesturing to a few fresh-looking little cuts littering the right side of Dakota’s face; a couple of them were still open and wet.

“Dusty and _dark_. I dunno what I walked into, but it was sharp, man,” Dakota replied, hissing when he swiped at the cuts with his thumb.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Cavendish scoffed. “Let me.”

Before Dakota could argue, Cavendish swiped a few paper napkins from the nearby refreshment table and bent down to get a better look at the cuts, dabbing at them gently. “How in the _world…_ ”

“Like I said… dumb mistake,” Dakota said faintly.

“Well, you seem fine; they’re all shallow. Just hold these here for another couple of minutes,” Cavendish instructed, waiting for Dakota to reach up and accept the napkins before he took his hand away. “Now, let’s head down to the observatory.”

“Yeah, hey, about that – how about we walk, instead of driving?” Dakota suggested.

“Well, I– wait,” Cavendish gave Dakota a narrow-eyed look, “how did you know I was going to suggest we drive there?”

“Ah, c’mon, you’re chompin’ at the bit to get back in that car.” Dakota smirked at him, though there was something off about the expression; likely his face was still irritated by whatever he’d walked into.

“Maybe,” Cavendish admitted after a moment of purse-lipped silence. “It’s just so cool!”

“Yeah, it is,” Dakota chuckled, before turning a bit more sober. “Seriously, though I think we should walk down.”

“Nonsense. We want to get to the observatory as quickly as possible and the car is the best way to do that.” Cavendish dismissed Dakota’s suggestion with a wave of his hand.

“Yeah, it’s just, y’know, it’s been rainin’ all day. Muddy as hell out there, the paths around here are bad for drivin’, the observatory’s down kind of a steep slope…” Dakota shrugged.

Cavendish frowned. “Are you suggesting I can’t safely navigate a _muddy hill?”_

Dakota put up his unoccupied hand, as though he was surrendering. “No, I’m just sayin’–”

“You’ll recall that I passed the very same driving exams you did at the academy. In fact, I’d wager I’d do a better job of driving than you!” Cavendish snapped. “The lessons are fresher in my mind, after all, and I–”

“Cav, look, I’m just worried, is all,” Dakota insisted.

“Well, don’t be,” Cavendish said firmly, extracting the keys from his pocket. “We’re driving down to the observatory, and that’s that.”

“A’right, okay, just… be careful,” Dakota muttered as he jogged to catch up with Cavendish’s long stride.

_Be careful?_ Honestly! Dakota needed to have more confidence in Cavendish’s abilities!

A little mud wasn’t going to trip him up.

-/-/-

“A little mud,” might have been an understatement.

There was a lot of mud.

The paths around the compound rarely saw use by cars and were more packed dirt than anything. And there was _a lot_ of mud.

The new time machine, though lovely, wasn’t quite built for this sort of use. Cavendish could feel the wheels slipping beneath him now and then, trying and failing to gain traction, and could admit to himself that perhaps this hadn’t been his best idea, but would be damned if he would admit it to Dakota.

However, though it had to be obvious that Cavendish was having trouble maneuvering the car over the slick terrain, Dakota had said nothing beyond one more “Are you sure this is a good idea” when they’d first gotten into the vehicle. Once Cavendish had snapped at him to be quiet, he actually had fallen silent, and had been sitting tensely and clutching the panic handle ever since.

Cavendish might have accused Dakota of being overdramatic if it weren’t for the genuine pallor and unease on his face; he attempted to recall if Dakota had ever exhibited discomfort while driving in inclement weather before, but came up short. Whatever Dakota’s problem was, he’d just have to deal with it while Cavendish attempted to get them safely down to the observatory. Maybe he _wasn’t_ altogether sure it was a good idea, but like hell would he back out now.

He did consider it, however, when they reached the top of the slope that led down to their destination. It was steeper than he’d realized, and looked just as unstable as the ground they’d been driving over already. At the bottom, the lights of the observatory shone brightly in the dark and, a little ways off to the side, the lights of another building cut through the night, this one squat and with a large dish jutting up from the roof. Cavendish supposed that building was the Earth-to-station communications center.

“Alright,” he murmured to himself, “easy does it.”

Gently, slowly, Cavendish urged the car over the apex of the hill and down the slope.

It was surprisingly smooth going, until Cavendish attempted to apply the brakes.

“Uh, Cav,” Dakota spoke for the first time since getting into the car.

Cavendish ignored him, focusing instead on driving.

“Cav, slow down.”

“I’m _trying.”_

No matter how hard Cavendish stepped down on the breaks, the wheels only spun against the mud, doing almost nothing to slow their descent. In fact, it seemed as though they were picking up speed, sliding down the slope at what was becoming an alarming pace. It was all Cavendish could do to keep them on a straight path – though apparently not straight enough. He spotted the large rock reaching up out of the mud at the same time Dakota shouted.

“Look out!”

Cavendish jerked the wheel, just barely pulling them out of the way, and instead sending them careening straight towards the little communications building.

There was no stopping. Cavendish laid in on the horn, hoping that if anyone was still in the building, they would hear the racket and clear out of the car’s path.

The building was quickly approaching, and Cavendish braced against the steering wheel, steeling himself for impact. He barely even noticed when Dakota, one hand still gripping the panic handle, reached over and wrapped his other hand around Cavendish’s arm, as if holding onto him would do much of anything.

The noise as they crashed through the wall seemed tremendous: the crumble-bang-thud of drywall and plaster, the shriek of broken glass, the ringing whine of dented metal scraping across the floor and raking the sides of the vehicle, and the screech of rubber against tile as the tires finally found enough purchase to grind to a halt. There was shouting, and the banging of disrupted furniture hitting the floor. To their right, a tall cabinet overbalanced and toppled into the passenger side door, shattering the window; Dakota cried out in surprise, instinctively attempting to cover his face as his seat was showered in glass.

The airbags had deployed when they had first gone crashing into the building, and Cavendish attempted to shake off the feeling of his brain rattling against the inside of his skull as he pushed away the deflating airbags, coughing on the dust they had expelled. “Dakota, are you–”

A great crumbling, cracking noise interrupted Cavendish, and both he and Dakota listened as it traveled up and over their heads, before a large chunk of the ceiling fell in. Apparently, they’d caused enough damage to the wall that it had destabilized the entire building; it would probably be best if they got out as soon as possible.

Before Cavendish could begin to suggest they make their exit, however, the creak and whine of distressed metal met their ears. There was more shouting, and then the crunch-crash of metal became deafening. Cavendish’s senses were overwhelmed for a moment by the noise and by the rumbling sensation of what he vaguely realized must have been the dish on top of the building falling through the roof; beyond that, he couldn’t quite have said what was going on.

When the noise stopped and Cavendish dared to open his eyes—when they had closed, he couldn’t say—the dish was hanging, partially demolished, through a large hole in the ceiling. Its supports had punched through the roof in several places – one, most notably, had come through right in front of the car. It had pierced the windshield and stabbed into the driver’s seat – where, Cavendish realized, he was no longer sitting.

At least not entirely. As he shifted, Cavendish realized that he’d been yanked out from under his seatbelt and halfway across the console, and was now being held tightly to Dakota’s side.

Dakota had pulled him out of the way of, if not certain death, an incredibly serious injury.

“You… you good?” Dakota asked after a long moment, when it seemed everything had gone quiet.

“I believe so,” Cavendish replied softly.

“Good,” Dakota breathed, sounding utterly relieved; he didn’t seem inclined to loosen his grip on Cavendish anytime soon, however, and it was only with some struggling that Cavendish managed to shake him off.

“Well,” Cavendish sighed, attempting to get a good look at the wreckage they’d caused through the cracked and dirty windows of their once-pristine vehicle, “we should probably get out and have a look at the damage.”

Before Cavendish or Dakota could attempt to get out of the car, an alarm began to blare, throwing the room back into chaos; employees rushed to whatever computers remained intact, shouting to one another, while a few unbroken lights flashed from the ceiling.

“Better idea: let’s get the hell outta here!” Dakota said quickly.

“We don’t even know if this thing will still run, much less get us into the timestream!” Cavendish insisted, gesturing vaguely at the damage.

“It’ll run, trust me,” Dakota promised. “Just back up off the pole and hit the time controls!”

Uncertain of the validity of Dakota’s claim, but willing to give it a shot before security showed up (and they _always_ showed up), Cavendish leaned awkwardly around the pole jutting through the windshield and threw the car into reverse before gingerly stepping on the gas. Much to his surprise, the car responded, backing away from the carnage of the satellite with a truly unfortunate grinding noise. The employees around them paid them little mind, attempting as they were to avert whatever crisis Cavendish and Dakota had visited upon them.

As soon as there were a few feet of clearance between the windshield and the pole, Cavendish hit the button to activate the time controls and punched the gas, taking them into the timestream with—almost unbelievably—no further incident.

Both men were silent as they traveled down the clock-strewn route.

“Well, that could have gone better,” Cavendish said after a long moment.

“Could’a been worse.” Dakota shrugged.

“I’m not so sure about that.” Cavendish sighed, reaching over to hit the button inherent in every time machine that would return them to the native timeline. “We’d best get back to headquarters and see what happened. I don’t imagine this thing has more than one trip in it, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Dakota replied, voice gone rather subdued. “Yeah, okay.”

-/-/-

Surprisingly, accidentally blowing up Earth’s second moon was not grounds for termination.

Cavendish almost wished it was, however, if only to spare himself having to listen to an hour of Mr. Block’s exceedingly loud verbal abuse.

Between aspersions cast on his and Dakota’s intelligence, competence, and lineage, Cavendish managed to gather that their time vehicle had plowed straight through the console containing the self-destruct controls for the station. Technicians had been unable to manually override the order, as the controls had been obliterated by the car. They had then been unable to communicate that it was simply a false alarm, as the dish had been hanging partway through the ceiling and was out of order. There had at least been enough time to evacuate the station of what staff members were already present before it blew, and both Dakota and Cavendish had heaved a sigh of relief to hear that.

They had been lucky that Earth’s second moon had only been a luxury destination, and not something pivotal to history, or they may have changed the course of the timeline irreparably.

The real saving grace, however—the only reason Cavendish and Dakota hadn’t been fired on the spot—was in that they had technically completed their mission – the popstar’s parents had been in the crowd gathered to see what had happened to the communications station, and had gone out for coffee afterwards to commiserate that they would not be living on a luxury space station.

Dumb luck, however, did not win them any points.

Eventually, Mr. Block shouted himself out, and Cavendish and Dakota were dismissed. They trudged back to their Bureau office in tired silence, each dropping down behind their respective desks to mourn the dead mission in their own ways.

“Well, that could’a been worse.”

Apparently, Dakota’s method involved an intolerable amount of optimism.

“Oh, will you be _quiet?”_ Cavendish snarled. “This is all _your_ fault, anyway.”

Dakota jerked back in his chair, as though Cavendish had physically leaned across their conjoined desks and smacked him. _“My_ fault? How is this all my fault?”

“If you hadn’t suggested we run, we might have been able to negate the self-destruct order!”

_“How?_ You heard Block, the whole thing was toast. I dunno about you, but I wouldn’t’ve known where the hell to even start fixing it.”

“We work with complex temporal technology! We could’ve– could’ve done _something!”_

Cavendish half expected Dakota to yell back – wanted him to, really. His mind was still churning with the adrenaline of the mission and the anxiety of the crash and the shame of their telling-off and he was spoiling for a fight.

As ever, though, Dakota did not fall in line with Cavendish’s desires. Instead of yelling, he sighed and stood form his desk. “Look, Cavendish, first instinct is for me to get the hell outta dodge when shit goes south because we _can’t get caught._ But I’m sorry, I guess.”

“And where are you going, _now?”_ Cavendish demanded, watching Dakota make the two-step trip across the office to the door.

“I’m just gonna give you some space, man. I’ll be back later.”

Dakota was out the door before Cavendish could argue any further, leaving Cavendish alone with his thoughts.

They weren’t very good company.

When it came down to it, Cavendish knew Dakota was right. Above all else, time agents could not be found out – and if that was unavoidable, they at least couldn’t be caught. The effects on the timeline were potentially catastrophic. Besides that, Dakota hadn’t been the one driving the car.

Much as Cavendish hated to admit it, Dakota had been right about everything, or at least the things leading up to and through the disastrous part of the evening. Maybe it was a fluke, but it was true all the same.

Cavendish sighed, looking down at his hands where they rested on the desktop. His cuffs were still smudged with powder, rubbed in when he’d tried in vain to brush the airbag debris off his suit before his meeting with Mr. Block. He likely still looked entirely like a mess, Cavendish realized; some water and some paper towels, at the very least, wouldn’t have been amiss.

Gritting his teeth against the groan that threatened to escape as he levered himself up from his desk, Cavendish was abruptly reminded that, although he had escaped with no serious injuries, he _had_ just been in a car crash. He was sore as all get out, and wondered vaguely if there would be any way to obtain some painkillers after he had cleaned himself up.

The way to the restroom made as little sense as it ever did; Cavendish remained firmly convinced that whoever had designed the Bureau headquarters had never actually seen the inside of a building in their entire life. It didn’t much help that Cavendish had had little time to acclimate himself to the building before he and Dakota had been stationed in the 2080’s, but he found his way to the bathroom with minimal fuss in the end.

The only real issue was that Cavendish had apparently ruined Dakota’s promise to give him some space.

Dakota hadn’t noticed anyone else was in the bathroom with him yet; he was leaning over the counter to get as close to the mirror as possible, blotting at the side of his face with a wet paper towel. Cavendish was momentarily alarmed to see it tinged rusty red, then remembered the broken glass that had peppered Dakota when the car window had shattered. On top of the cuts he’d already had there, the car crash could only have made matters worse.

“Wouldn’t you fare better going to the infirmary?”

Dakota jumped, whirling around to face the intruder, and breathed a relieved sigh when he saw who it was. “Man, don’t sneak up on me like that.”

Cavendish offered what might have been an apologetic smile, though it looked more like a grimace in the mirror as he stepped up to the counter beside Dakota. “You really should get some disinfectant on those, at least,” he said, brushing absently at the front of his suit.

“Eh, I’ll be fine. Done stupider things with worse injuries.” Dakota shrugged, turning back to continue cleaning his cuts.

“If that was intended to be reassuring, you missed the mark by a long shot,” Cavendish snipped; beside him, Dakota huffed out a noise that might have been laughter.

They stood in silence for a while after that, Dakota tending his face and Cavendish attempting to reorder his appearance as best he could. Finally, giving it up as a bad job, Cavendish sighed and sagged against the counter.

“I… never did thank you,” he said quietly.

“For what? Screwin’ everything up?” Dakota asked, and far less sarcastically than Cavendish would have expected.

“No. You saved my life tonight, Dakota.” Cavendish turned his head, seeking Dakota’s eyes in the mirror. “Thank you.”

Dakota stilled, one hand in front of the faucet and the other clutched around the used paper towels. Cavendish could just see eyes behind the tinted lenses of his glasses, but Dakota wasn’t looking at him.

“Cav… you don’t gotta thank me for that,” Dakota said, voice soft. “We’re partners, y’know? That means somethin’. ‘course I want you to be safe.”

For a long moment, Cavendish had nothing to say to that. He hadn’t expected such sentiment from Dakota – such _seriousness._ There wasn’t a trace of the usual laidback humor on his face, nor any sign of an incoming joke to lighten the mood. In the face of Dakota’s sincerity, Cavendish felt almost ashamed.

He’d been so focused on getting away from Dakota that he hadn’t taken any time to consider the ways in which Dakota looked out for him, and clearly cared for their partnership. He was by no means perfect—not ideal or well-suited to Cavendish and his aspirations—but he was a good partner.

Even if Dakota brought nothing more to the table, Cavendish supposed he could live with that.

“Well,” Cavendish murmured, “thank you, all the same.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dakota replied with a small smile, tossing his paper towels and activating the faucet to wash his hands.

“You don’t suppose…” Cavendish began, the thought suddenly occurred to him, “will they… split us up, after this travesty of a mission?”

Dakota snorted, shaking his head. “Nah. I know Block. He’ll keep us stuck with each other because it’s the best punishment he can think of.”

“Oh.” Cavendish wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that. “Well, I suppose there are worse things.”

“Yes,” Dakota said, finally glancing over to catch Cavendish’s eyes, “yes, there are.”


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big long chapter about angst and feelings. Hopefully nothing too out of character, though. Regarding their living situation: in canon, it seems like they just live in their office? Which is terrible. Some people have given them an apartment beyond the office, which I like a lot. However, an offsite living space better suited my purposes here, so that's what I went with
> 
> Warnings in this chapter for mentions of injury, depression, anxiety, PTSD, and very brief mention of suicidal thoughts (not all from the same person). It's probably not as bad as it sounds all run together like that, but just in case!
> 
> As ever, if you catch any errors, feel free to point them out so I can fix them because I was too impatient to find a beta reader!

It was amazing, Cavendish reflected, the sort of personal boundaries an extremely tight budget could break down.

For example, once Cavendish and Dakota had been kicked back to the mid-2010’s and taken a rather severe cut both in pay and funding, the most they’d been able to afford after renting a professional space (and not even a very good one) was a rather dingy studio flat. Furnishings had been a game of creative budgeting, such as “if we get just one mattress and no bed frame, we can afford to eat.”

Which left the two of them sleeping side by side on a thrifted queen mattress on the floor of their barren flat.

A year ago, Cavendish wouldn’t have even considered this an option (they had, in fact, started out trading off sleeping on the mattress and the dilapidated couch—one of the few pieces of furniture the flat had come with—but it had generally left Cavendish with a backache and Dakota with a headache, and they had eventually silently agreed to give up and share the mattress). Now, the only part of it that Cavendish really minded was that Dakota was a damnably light sleeper.

If Cavendish himself was feeling restless, he had to vacate the bed (mattress) and move to the table in the kitchenette across the (admittedly small) room. More than a brief change in position, as well as any manner of light, was liable to wake Dakota and, though he never actually complained about it, he would yawn and mumble vaguely about being tired all through the next day. Cavendish liked to avoid this where possible and so, when his mind refused to settle down, he would usually grab his intertemporal communicator and head for the kitchen table.

On this particular night, there were all manner of things plaguing Cavendish’s mind; thoughts of Agent Murphy, thoughts of the possible importance of pistachios, thoughts of Brick and Savannah’s words, thoughts of his position at the bureau – and thoughts of _Dakota’s_ position at the bureau.

It had taken a bit before Cavendish had remembered Dakota’s comment about the Mississippi Purchase, but he’d tried to ask about it once he had. Each attempt had been met with deflection and distraction – the latter usually involving fire and pistachios and being very distracting, indeed. What Cavendish found odd, however, was that Dakota never gave him a straight answer. In fact, Dakota rarely gave him a straight answer about anything regarding his career before he and Cavendish had been paired up, and it was only his skills or knowledge that would hint that he’d been much of an agent before their partnering at all (and neither of those things were frequently on display).

Right back to the very beginning, Cavendish recalled that Dakota had only said it had been “a while” since he’d joined the bureau, and that he’d entirely lost track of how long he’d spent in the field. At the time (and most of the time since), Cavendish had assumed it was simply Dakota’s lackadaisical attitude towards most things work-related. He’d thought of Dakota as a generally open person, inclined to hide very little, and that he genuinely couldn’t be bothered to remember. Now, with the recent evasion of a subject _he’d_ brought up in the first place, Cavendish didn’t feel quite so sure.

He hated being unsure.

However, where direct questions had failed, Cavendish was sure research would prevail. Many older and lower-level cases were open to Bureau employees for research and learning purposes; Cavendish had studied many of them during his days at the academy. He wasn’t entirely sure a mission involving the Mississippi/Louisiana Purchase would be considered low-level, but Cavendish hoped it might have been old enough to have been released. He logged in to the Bureau of Time Travel internal database and typed in his query.

Very few results came back, and Cavendish selected the top link.

No, no, it was still classified.

Cavendish nearly closed the application before taking another look at the page, but his brows jumped to his hairline when he did. It seemed the file was closed to all but first-class agents and high-level administration.

There were only two reasons Cavendish knew of for classification that high; either, one, the mission had been of far greater importance that Cavendish had first assumed or, two, it had gone very, very wrong.

Neither option particularly appealed. Cavendish didn’t like to think of Dakota having gone on bigger and better missions before they became partners, for a number of reasons. But then, if he _had_ gone on a mission of such status, why was he still a third-class agent? The thought led Cavendish to consider that the mission had simply gone belly-up – but he didn’t much care for that idea, either. Irritating thought Dakota may have been, Cavendish didn’t like assuming the worst about him. He _liked_ Dakota. (He didn’t even feel that bad about admitting it, really; there seemed to be very few people incapable of getting along with Dakota on some level.)

Across the room, Dakota made an indistinct noise in his sleep, and Cavendish could hear the rustle of the sheets as his partner shifted on the bed.

Cavendish wondered if demanding a straight answer would get him where polite questions had not.

Or perhaps there was another way around it? No administrative employee was going to tell Cavendish anything, that much he knew—Mr. Block was the only one among them who would even return his calls, for one thing—but he could always ask a first-class agent if they knew anything about the Mississippi Purchase.

Unfortunately, Cavendish only knew two first-class agents.

He wondered if Dakota had saved the number for Brick and Savannah’s intertemporal communicators.

-/-/-

In the end, it wasn’t quite as difficult to track down Brick and Savannah as Cavendish had expected.

Though Dakota always seemed to be aware of their whereabouts, Cavendish was not similarly blessed, and had spent a week wondering how he might locate the other agents without his partner knowing, when a mission of theirs had intersected with one of Brick and Savannah’s.

Of course, Cavendish and Dakota were only protecting the catering table’s pistachio-rich offerings at the high-class gathering they were assigned to, while Brick and Savannah were doing something predictably more important (though _what_ they were doing remained a mystery; Mr. Block had only mentioned it in order to tell them not to interfere), but Cavendish would take what he could get.

Cavendish spent the evening waiting for an opportunity to speak to at least one of his fellow agents, and finally got it when they both wandered casually over towards the hors d’oeuvres.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Savannah murmured as she glanced over the night’s offerings, as if she could tell Cavendish was about to speak. “We’re only here because this is the best vantage point in the room.”

“Yeah, it is a pretty good view, isn’t it?” Dakota agreed amiably.

Brick rolled his eyes, selecting some sort of pistachio-spread cracker. “One of use should check the perimeter,” he mentioned to Savannah before popping the cracker into his mouth.

“I nominate you,” Savannah replied quickly.

“Why me?”

“Because it’s your turn.”

“Since when?”

“Since I did it last time.”

Brick opened his mouth to retort, but Savannah beat him to the punch without even looking up. “Every second we spend arguing is another second the threat could use against us.”

With a sigh and a moody frown, Brick acquiesced, though not without informing Savannah that next time would most definitely be _her_ turn.

“Looks like trouble with the dream team, huh?” Dakota remarked interestedly to Cavendish, voice low.

Cavendish pretended not to hear him. “Dakota, you should also go check the perimeter.”

Cavendish pretended not to hear Savannah’s delicately derisive snort, either.

“Check the perimeter for _what?”_ Dakota asked, eyebrows raised in confusion.

“For threats to the pistachios,” Cavendish hissed. “And keep an eye out for Agent Murphy.”

“Oy, here we go,” Dakota sighed. “Cav, I’m pretty sure that a middle schooler isn’t gonna be at a fancy shindig like this.”

“Will you just go?” Cavendish snapped, giving Dakota a not altogether gentle nudge towards the exit.

“A’right, a’right, no need to shove.” Dakota waved Cavendish’s hand away and pulled his apron off over his head before ducking out from behind the table.

Wanting to remain cautious, Cavendish waited until Dakota was out of sight to sidle down the table and attempt to catch Savannah’s attention.

“May I ask you a question?”

“You will whether I say you can or not,” Savannah sighed, without so much as a glance in his direction.

“Excellent.” Cavendish cleared his throat, keeping his voice low. “What do you know about the Mississippi Purchase?”

The change in Savannah was minute, but immediate. She seemed to stare even harder at the ballroom laid out before them. “That’s above your paygrade, Cavendish.”

“Yes, I know. That’s why I’ve been forced to ask you,” Cavendish huffed. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t attempt to push my way into any sort of top-secret Bureau business–” here, Savannah snorted again, and again, Cavendish ignored it, “–but Dakota brought it up and I’m desperately curious.”

Just for a moment, Savannah actually looked over at Cavendish, appearing both curious and something like alarmed. “He _told_ you about it?”

“Well, no. That’s just the thing – he mentioned it was why he’d joined the bureau, but won’t say another thing about it.”

“Good.”

“Good?” Cavendish frowned. “What on _Earth_ could have been so important about this mission that no one will say a bloody word about it?”

Savannah turned again, this time levelling the full weight of her considering stare upon him. “Some things are better left alone,” she said after a long moment. “Consider the following, Cavendish: no one wants to be your partner because you suck at your job–”

_“I beg your pardon–”_

“–but no one wants to be Dakota’s partner because he’s _damaged goods_.”

The irritation sparked by Savannah’s snide comment about Cavendish’s own competency died out, replaced by confusion, and a small flicker of outrage on his partner’s behalf. Perhaps Cavendish could be critical of his partner, but that didn’t mean he would let _other_ people go about insulting Dakota.

“What do you mean, “damaged goods?””

Savannah shook her head, turning to look back out over the room, either surveying it for threats or avoiding Cavendish’s eyes. Maybe both.

“I wasn’t involved in that mission, so I don’t remember the timeline prior to the shift from Mississippi to Louisiana, but I read the files. Dakota was good. Damn good.” Savannah paused and, for a very brief second, looked _almost_ sad. “Now watching him is just depressing.”

Dakota was _good?_

Dakota _was_ good?

Cavendish wasn’t sure which part of Savannah’s statement to pick apart or take issue with, but Dakota chose that moment to reappear, and entirely ruined Cavendish’s chance to interrogate Savannah further.

“Hey, Cav–” Dakota approached Cavendish quickly, almost out of breath.

“You can’t _possibly_ be done checking over the perimeter already!” Cavendish snapped. “Brick is still gone.”

“About that – I wanted you to get a look at something for me. Out that window, right there, you should be able to see it,” Dakota gestured, drawing Cavendish’s attention to the windows to the left of the catering table.

“A threat?” His conversation with Savannah momentarily forgotten, Cavendish stepped out from behind the table to look out the window, encouraged by Dakota’s hand pressing gently into the middle of his back.

“I’m not sure, s’why I wanted you to get a look at it,” Dakota said. “It’s riiiight oooover–”

Dakota’s lengthy consideration of where, exactly, Cavendish needed to look was cut off when a chandelier fell from the ceiling and smashed into the catering table, then caught fire almost immediately. The smell of burning pistachios—something Cavendish was now intimately familiar with—reached their noses quickly.

“What the devil? Dakota, did you–”

“Nah, no idea what happened,” Dakota shook his head, looking more resigned than surprised, and Cavendish supposed that was fair; this did happen a lot.

The look of utter startlement on Savannah’s face was almost worth the failure, though.

“Well, it’s a good job we were out from behind there. That chandelier could have crushed us,” Cavendish said wonderingly.

“Could’a, but it didn’t,” Dakota added with a cheerful sort of finality. “And, hey, it looks like that thing I wanted you to look at was actually just a tree, so I guess we can skedaddle.”

“A _tree?”_ Cavendish sputtered. “How did you mistake a _tree_ for a potential _threat?”_

“Eh, it was dark.” Dakota shrugged.

Cavendish scowled, puzzled and irritated by Dakota’s sheer lack of regard for the seriousness of the situation, but had to admit there was little left for them to do there. They’d failed their mission, and neither Brick nor Savannah would be answering any more of Cavendish’s questions, so he supposed it was best for them to do as Dakota suggested.

“Alright, let’s just get out of here before someone tries to demand a refund on the catering,” Cavendish sighed.

They made quickly for the door, utilizing one skill of theirs that had grown sharp during their pistachio protection assignment – the ability to make a hasty exit.

-/-/-

Not once in their partnership had Cavendish seen Dakota _hit_ someone. It was rare enough to get him to do much physical work at all, never mind engaging in any sort of fisticuffs. Dakota preferred to let Cavendish be “the muscle,” as he put it; the most Dakota had ever really done was help secure an occasionally unruly pistachio vendor (though Cavendish occasionally had the feeling it was as much to make sure they weren’t too uncomfortable as anything – as if he thought Cavendish hadn’t noticed the occasional loosening of his perfect knotwork or a comforting sort of pat on the shoulder).

Cavendish had therefore been very startled to learn that when push came to shove, Dakota shoved back. Hard. Occasionally with blunt objects.

Perhaps it had had something to do with the presence of the Murphy boy (unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on one’s point of view—not a counteragent, but just a very nice young man with a very strange genetic affliction); goodness knew Cavendish had been more on edge with a civilian around. Yet there had been something almost ruthless about the way Dakota had defended them—Murphy and Cavendish both—that Cavendish wasn’t sure could be attributed to just the boy’s nearness alone. When Dakota did fight, he fought to win, and it made Cavendish wonder.

A lot of it, in retrospect, made Cavendish wonder. Why did Dakota know a back way to the bureau that Cavendish didn’t? Was it simply because he’d been employed there longer? How had Dakota been able to keep his head when Cavendish himself had been caught up on the particulars of _why_ and _how_? Loath though Cavendish was to admit it, it was Dakota’s insistence they keep moving, rather than confront or solve the problem immediately, that had kept their little group alive. Perhaps it would have been a different story had Murphy not been along for the ride, and yet – well, there was no way of knowing now.

Cavendish recalled what Savannah had said to him some weeks ago, before the whole business with the Pistachions had both happened and not happened.

Dakota had been good. (Damn good.)

Though it was hardly the most pressing of matters on Cavendish’s mind at the moment, he was growing ever more determined to learn just what the hell had happened before he and Dakota had been assigned as partners – and what had happened on that mission to stop the Mississippi Purchase.

-/-/-

Things didn’t change much, but somehow, they did.

No one believed that Cavendish and Dakota had averted the Pistachion uprising and saved the world (with some assistance), and they were jokes just as much as they had been before. More so, perhaps, with the added detail of their “faked” triumph over sentient pistachio plants. They still received basic equipment, would still be driving their little lemon of a time machine as soon as the front end was fixed, and would assuredly still be on pistachio duty when they received another mission.

Then there was, of course, the decided lack of Pistachions destroying the future (or present, or whenever; Cavendish was beginning to understand Dakota’s blasé attitude towards temporal labels). Even though no one recognized their accomplishment, Dakota assured Cavendish that the fact they had saved the world was enough – and that the proof was all around them.

He sounded so sincere about it that Cavendish almost believed him.

Almost.

Despite his ever-affable nature, Dakota still seemed a bit chafed by the treatment they were receiving from their colleagues and superiors. Then again, Dakota seemed a bit more irritable in general.

It wasn’t quite a large change, but it was noticeable to Cavendish, who spent so much time with Dakota that it was nearly impossible not to notice a shift in his habits; he slept less, ate more, replied more sharply to things than he had in the past, and—most concerningly—nearly decked Cavendish one morning when he hadn’t noticed the other man come up behind him in the kitchen area.

He’d apologized profusely, of course, claiming he was simply wound tight and jumpy after their misadventure with the Pistachions.

Cavendish himself couldn’t claim he wasn’t jumping at the occasional shadow (or tree); their encounter had left him rather more undeniably anxious than it had found him. And Dakota had looked so terribly guilty over the incident—even going so far as to offer Cavendish the last doughnut—that despite the fact Cavendish could count on one finger the amount of times he’d seen Dakota react to something with violence, he let it go.

He simply hoped his partner’s behavior would return to what passed for normal when they got their time machine repaired and were given their next mission.

In the meantime, however, they had little to do but wander Danville – on foot, no less. Cavendish refused to make use of the demeaning tandem bicycle they’d been given for temporary use, no matter how Dakota advocated for its novelty value. It wasn’t altogether terrible, though, Cavendish supposed – their sight-seeing, that was, not the bicycle. They had something of a bird’s eye view of Murphy’s Law, now that they weren’t doing anything important enough for it to interfere with (or doing much of anything at all, really). They would occasionally stand back and try to guess how things would go wrong – both of them were incorrect, often as not, but Dakota seemed to be much better at following the mechanics of the phenomenon than Cavendish was.

Dakota’s answer, when asked how he did it, was to shrug and say that it reminded him of time travel, a little. The fact that Cavendish was _also_ a time traveler apparently made no never mind.

They ran into Milo a few times, in the wake of some disaster or another; they even treated him to ice cream once. Somehow, it was the calmest Cavendish had seen Dakota since the incident, which seemed rather counterintuitive to Cavendish, but Dakota had never deigned to make sense before – why should he start now?

(“Good to see he’s doin’ okay,” Dakota had commented later, and Cavendish supposed it really was.)

It was almost bizarrely peaceful, following such a large catastrophe, and Cavendish couldn’t help waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When it did (as it had to, if Cavendish knew anything at all about the world), he just hoped the fallout wouldn’t be too great.

-/-/-

Cavendish and Dakota’s usual time vehicle took nearly two weeks to repair.

It wasn’t so much that it had been a difficult fix as it was that they’d just been low on the list, priority-wise (this was not paranoia speaking, but the words of Mr. Block). Still, the bureau mechanics had gotten around to it at last, and they’d received notice that they could come pick up their car.

The BoTT garage was always bustling, time travelers and time machines alike always coming and going, with mechanics weaving in between. Time vehicles could be finicky things, and it was in everyone’s best interest to keep them fine-tuned. It was a fascinating place, and Cavendish always looked forward to their vehicle’s scheduled tune-ups so that he would have a chance to look around. Perhaps he wasn’t the best when it came to the maintenance of time vehicles, but he did love _looking._

The mechanics themselves were busy people, generally short on time and temper, but the one most often assigned to fix Cavendish and Dakota’s car had a little more patience than most—which was likely why they kept assigning him to their lost cause of a vehicle in the first place—and was willing to turn a blind eye if they wanted to have a look at one or two of the spiffier machines waiting for work.

Most of the time.

“The hell did you _do_ to her?”

Today, he was rather irate.

“We’re sorry, Sam,” Cavendish attempted.

Sam wasn’t having it. “She’s on her last goddamn leg as it is, you can go driving her into walls!”

“I _told_ him to ride the breaks,” Dakota interjected helpfully.

“And I told _you_ , that’s bad for the disks,” Cavendish snapped.

“Well a brick wall is bad for the front end!” Sam exclaimed.

“That’s what _I_ said!” Dakota threw his hands up, apparently vindicated.

“Look, what happened, happened, and we’re terribly sorry,” Cavendish interjected before Sam and Dakota could get into a conversation that involved more expletives and hand-waving than actual English – it had happened before. “We’ll be very careful from here on out.”

“That’s what you always say,” Sam grumbled, rolling his eyes.

“In our defense, we always _mean_ it. We’re just not good with the follow-through,” Dakota said.

Sam snorted, tossing the keys to Dakota, who fumbled, but caught them. “Not like I can keep her from you, anyway,” Sam said with a shake of his head. “ _Try_ to keep her in good shape for more than a week, huh?”

“That would imply it’s in good shape now,” Cavendish pointed out, dubiously.

“She’s in the best shape she’s gonna get in, alright? Now g’wan, scat. I’ve got shit to do,” Sam grumbled, shooing them off with a wave of his hand.

Obediently, Cavendish and Dakota took their keys and headed for the pickup area. “Always nice to see Sam,” Dakota commented as they walked.

“Delightful,” Cavendish replied dryly.

“Hey, so now we’ve got our ride back, how about lunch?” Dakota asked. “I was thinkin’…”

It took Cavendish a moment to realize that Dakota had not paused for dramatic effect, but had, in fact, stopped talking. “You were thinking…?” he prompted, turning to see that Dakota had stopped walking a few paces behind him. “Dakota?”

Dakota didn’t seem to hear him, staring instead at one of the mechanics milling around near the pickup area. Cavendish took a moment to stare, too; the mechanic didn’t look particularly familiar, nor did there seem to be anything particularly striking about her. She was pretty enough, certainly, but enough to make Dakota stop and forget what he was doing?

Behind tinted lenses, Dakota was squinting, as if he wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at. “Camilla?” he wondered quietly, before breaking into a grin as he seemed to become more sure of himself. “Camilla! Hey, Camilla!”

The mechanic looked up from the tablet she’d been examining, startled by the call.

“Camilla Callahan!” Dakota waved, already jogging over and leaving Cavendish to catch up. “It’s me, it’s– it’s Vinnie. Dakota.”

The mechanic – Camilla clutched the tablet to her chest, frowning at Dakota. “I remember.”

Dakota’s smile faltered, and Cavendish resolved to stay a few steps back from the interaction. It was shaping up to be awkward.

“I had no idea you started up down here. Makes sense, though, you were always lookin’ at our time vehicle, and you were real good with–”

“You didn’t know I was down here because I didn’t want you to know,” Camilla snapped. “We’re not friends, Vinnie. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Oh,” was all Dakota seemed to be able to say for a moment. “I– I just thought… I mean it’s been years, and–”

“That doesn’t change the fact that – it just – it doesn’t matter long it’s been, okay?” Camilla stumbled over her words, face crumpling with stress. “I just – I don’t forgive you. And I’m not going to.”

Dakota’s whole being seemed to slump with defeat as Camilla spoke. Cavendish had never seen his partner pull so completely into himself, and it was only the absolute certainty that he should not interfere with this argument that kept Cavendish from stepping forward to put a comforting sort of hand on Dakota’s shoulder.

“So take your car and your partner and get back to whatever time period you’re supposed to be in,” Camilla said, turning to walk away from them. As she left, she threw one more quiet comment over her shoulder, voice hard around the edges. “And try to look after this one better than you looked after Shay.”

Dakota flinched, a whole-body jerk that made it seem as though he’d been struck by the words. He didn’t reply.

Cavendish stood there quietly, awkwardness increasing with every moment Dakota said nothing, until he couldn’t take it anymore and cleared his throat.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Dakota said, as if he’d been waiting for Cavendish’s cue. “That was just someone I used to know. Here.” He held the keys out for Cavendish. “You mind drivin’?”

“Er – no. No, I don’t mind.” Cavendish accepted the keys.

Walking in silence, they located their car and headed back for the 2010’s.

As they moved down the timestream, Dakota stared out the window, still unnervingly quiet. He didn’t chatter at Cavendish or fiddle with the radio or badger about lunch; he simply sat and avoided Cavendish’s occasional inquisitive looks.

Cavendish, meanwhile, itched to ask what in the world had just happened. Who was Camilla? Who was Shay? How did Dakota know either of them, and what had happened between them? Dakota could be a bother, but Cavendish genuinely had trouble imagining him doing something unforgivable. And just what or who was Dakota supposed to be looking after?

Curious as he was, Cavendish held the questions in. He’d never seen Dakota quite like this—shaken, withdrawn, _quiet_ —and something told him that now would not be the best time to push for answers. Instead, Cavendish focused on driving them home.

“Do you feel like Mexican for lunch?” Cavendish asked as they exited the timestream.

“Not actually that hungry.” Dakota shrugged. “Pretty beat, actually. If you’re goin’ back to the office, d’you think you could just drop me back at the apartment on the way?”

Cavendish almost demanded answers then and there; he had never, not once, seen Dakota pass up food in any capacity. Whatever was wrong was truly something big.

Then again–

Did Cavendish really know Dakota well enough to make that judgement? They’d been partners, practically living in one another’s pockets, for a year a half; he’d have liked to say he knew Dakota quite well, but this incident made him reconsider.

Today’s interaction, Dakota’s recent behavior, his reticence with anything about his career before meeting Cavendish, The Mississippi Purchase – maybe he knew his partner’s habits, but Cavendish didn’t seem to know his life.

Suddenly frustrated, Cavendish nodded. “Yes, fine,” he grumbled.

In his periphery, Dakota frowned. “Cav…”

“I said _fine.”_ Cavendish snapped.

Surprisingly, Dakota subsided. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Cavendish repeated stiffly.

-/-/-

Cavendish wasn’t getting a damned thing done.

After dropping Dakota off, Cavendish had gone to the office in hopes of calming his nerves with paperwork; it wasn’t fun, but it was methodical enough to combat his anxiety most days.

Unfortunately, he’d taken care of any and all backed-up paperwork during their impromptu time off. Instead, he rearranged the filing cabinet, picked up the area around his desk, and finally resorted to looking at old mission files on his communicator, but nothing could quite hold his attention.

The thing was, much as Dakota frustrated him, Cavendish had come to value him as a companion. Perhaps he’d resented their partnership at first, but he had accepted it, and now he appreciated it. Dakota was someone upon whom Cavendish could (mostly) rely.

Dakota had said that being partners meant something.

But apparently, being partners didn’t mean trusting one another with personal information.

Perhaps Cavendish hadn’t told Dakota everything about _himself_ , but he liked to think he would offer tit for tat. If Dakota would just tell _him_ something–!

Well, this simply wouldn’t do.

Decisively, Cavendish snatched up the keys to the time machine and marched from the office. If Dakota wouldn’t offer the information on his own, perhaps he would if prompted.

If he didn’t–

Well, they would go from there.

Cavendish made good time (perhaps owing to the fact that it was much earlier than he would usually leave the office), and headed up to their tiny flat with purpose. It was almost dark when he pushed through the door, the lights off and shades drawn, the only source of illumination coming from the miniscule gaps in the blackout curtains over the window, and Cavendish frowned. Surely Dakota was still here?

He flipped the light switch by the door.

“Sonuva _bitch.”_

Ah, there he was, sitting halfway up on the mattress with one hand covering his eyes, the other grasping around for his sunglasses. Whoops.

“Sorry!” Cavendish blurted, his previous sour mood momentarily forgotten as he hit the lights again.

“Jesus, what the hell, Cav?” Dakota’s voice came out of the darkness.

“Well what were you doing just sitting with your glasses off during daylight hours, anyway?” Cavendish huffed; Dakota was generally careful about his photophobia, and tended to keep his sunglasses on when there was any danger of being exposed to sunlight.

“I was sitting in the dark! Curtains closed an’ everything! You weren’t supposed to be home for a while,” Dakota retorted. “What’re you doin’ back so early?”

What _was_ he doing– oh, yes. Cavendish remembered now; _he_ was supposed to be the irritated party, not Dakota.

“I came to talk to you.”

“That sounds kinda ominous.”

“It needn’t be, if you’re just willing to open up a little.”

There was quiet for a few long moments, and Cavendish wished there was enough light to really see Dakota’s face by, if only so he could get some inkling of what the other man was thinking.

“You want answers about today, don’t you.”

It wasn’t a question, but Cavendish answered. “It would be nice, for a start.”

Dakota sighed. “Cav…”

“Look, is it safe to turn on the light again? This seems to be the sort of conversation that should be had face to face.”

“Maybe just the lamp?”

Cavendish hummed in agreement and made his way over to their one and only lamp – a secondhand standing type fitted with a low-watt bulb and covered with an old scarf to soften the light further. It was what they turned on when Dakota wanted to leave his glasses off around the flat, though Cavendish had found it terribly helpful when he got tension headaches, as well.

The lamp flickered to life and Cavendish could see Dakota was now sitting up on the mattress, sunglasses clutched in one hand while his other massaged at his temples. Cavendish had the feeling it wasn’t the accidental blast of light that had Dakota tense. Still, he didn’t plan on giving up without getting some kind of answers.

He frowned as he drew closer and saw the crumbs dotting the blanket, noting the half-empty container of cookies sitting on the floor beside Dakota.

“We _talked_ about eating on the bed,” Cavendish snapped. “And I thought you weren’t hungry?”

“I’m not.” Dakota shrugged.

“Then why are you– never mind.” Cavendish shook his head, leaning down to snatch up the container of cookies and take it back to the kitchen; Dakota made no complaint, and Cavendish’s consternation deepened. What _was_ going on?

When Cavendish turned back, Dakota was making a halfhearted effort to brush the crumbs off the blankets and his own jacket. “So, uh,” Dakota began without looking up, “got any specific questions in mind, or should I just…?”

Cavendish nearly scoffed. “Well, in no particular order, let’s start with: How did you know that mechanic? Who is Shay? What’s got you so out of sorts today and, while we’re on the subject, what’s had you out of sorts for the last two weeks? And _what was the Mississippi Purchase?”_

“Okay, okay, slow down,” Dakota threw his hands up in surrender. “I can’t… tell you everything. I’ve broken some rules before, but that mission is classified. And it is for a reason. But I’ll tell you what I can, okay?”

It was a bit of a disappointment that, of all the times Dakota could choose to adhere to procedure, it would be now, when Cavendish was dying to know what that mission had been about, but Cavendish would take what he could get. “Alright.”

Dakota nodded. “Alright. You wanna come sit or something? You’re wiggin’ me out just looming over there.”

“I am not _looming,”_ Cavendish protested, but he removed his shoes and came to sit on the bed beside Dakota all the same.

“Great, so,” Dakota let out a breath, flopping back against the pillows, “I’m from an alternate timeline.”

“I’d gathered as much,” Cavendish replied dryly.

Dakota shrugged. “Gotta start somewhere. You gonna keep interrupting, or let me talk?”

“I make no promises.”

A little smirk tugged at Dakota’s mouth. “Well, we’ll give it a shot, anyway. So like I said: alternate timeline. It was bad. I don’t really wanna… I mean, I’m not sayin’ I don’t think about it, but I don’t wanna go into specifics, y’know?” Dakota waved his hands vaguely over his chest as he spoke, his sunglasses deposited by the side of the bed. “Just trust me when I say it wasn’t really a good time for most people involved.”

“And that’s why you joined the bureau?” Cavendish asked.

“Yep. I didn’t know at the time it was specifically the Mississippi Purchase that a lot of that bad shit could be traced back to, so I guess it’s not a hundred percent right to say I joined to stop it, y’know, specifically, but… I knew somethin’ had to change. So I joined up. Went through the academy and everything, got assigned to my first partner: Shay Callahan.”

There was a faded sort of fondness to Dakota’s voice as he spoke, and Cavendish wondered how he had never considered any of Dakota’s previous partners. Logically, he’d known they must have existed, but he’d never spent much time thinking about how _other_ time agents might have put up with Dakota.

“They were… they were the greatest. I mean,” Dakota cut a quick look at Cavendish, “I’m not sayin’ you’re not great. You are, Cav, you really, really are. Shay was just – they were my first. Kinda like a mentor, but also my friend.”

_“You_ were my first partner,” Cavendish pointed out. “I never got a… mentor, or anything of that sort.”

“Yeah,” Dakota replied quietly. “Sorry about that. You kinda got stuck with damaged goods, I guess.”

The echo of Savannah’s words made Cavendish very suddenly uncomfortable. “Don’t say that,” he snapped.

Dakota had always seemed cheerfully oblivious to everyone else’s impression of him, but now Cavendish wondered if he hadn’t known all along, and had simply chosen to ignore it.

Dakota shrugged. “’s true, though. I actually used to be pretty good at this job. I still tried to have fun, but I took missions pretty seriously, if you can believe it,” he said, cracking a small grin that did nothing to communicate amusement. “Me ‘n Shay had a real good success rate. Shay was already good, and they taught me everything they could, and between us, we came up in the bureau pretty quick. We were up for promotion to first class.”

_“Really?”_ Cavendish blurted, unable to help himself.

“Really,” Dakota replied evenly. “Our big-job mission, our test, I guess, was to go ‘n change the Mississippi Purchase. There were a few other points other teams were hitting that would also kinda help heal the timeline, but that was our part.”

Dakota fell quiet. Cavendish waited, playing at appearing patient for a moment, but as Dakota continued to stare up at the ceiling, it seemed nothing else was forthcoming.

“And you succeeded,” Cavendish prompted quietly. “The Mississippi Purchase became the Louisiana Purchase, and things may not be perfect here, but they seem better than you described.”

“Yeah. Yeah, mission accomplished. But, uh. Shay died, so I dunno if it was really considered a success,” Dakota said quietly.

“Oh,” Cavendish put a hand to his mouth, cursing for a moment that he had chosen to speak. “Oh, Dakota, I’m sorry…”

“It’s… I mean, it’s not alright, but whadaya gonna do? There’s no– no goin’ back to fix it. Not now. I don’t even remember how I made it back to headquarters; I got pretty banged up, too. Almost died.” Strangely, Dakota chuckled. “Kinda wished I actually had for a while. Felt like it would’a been easier.”

A sick wave of shock rippled through Cavendish’s gut. That couldn’t be right. Dakota was– Dakota was laidback, irreverent, good-humored – _happy._ Or at least, Cavendish had assumed…

“So I was in the hospital for a while. And they made me go see a shrink for a while, too. Said I had to if I wanted to keep my job, talked about post-traumatic whatever,” Dakota was saying, voice deceptively light. “That’s probably what’s been up with me the last couple’a weeks, too. Since you asked. I’ve got all that shit pretty much on lock now, but that whole nutjobber thing…”

If the Pistachion incident had exacerbated Cavendish’s own anxiety, he could imagine how such an event might aggravate a condition like PTSD – particularly in someone who had come from a timeline less ideal than the one in which they currently resided.

“Just shook me up a little, I guess. But yeah, after that, no established agent really wanted me as a partner. Looked at me as the guy who got his partner killed, y’know?” Dakota closed his eyes, and Cavendish noted how utterly tired he looked without the omnipresent tinted glasses. “And that was fair.”

“How is that _fair?”_ Cavendish demanded. “It wasn’t your fault, Dakota!”

“Yeah, it was,” Dakota intoned; he didn’t even open up his eyes.

“It was not.”

“Cav, you weren’t even there.”

“I don’t have to have been. I know you, Dakota,” Cavendish stated confidently. “I know you must have tried. You wouldn’t just let your partner die. It can’t have been your fault.”

Dakota was quiet for so long that Cavendish thought perhaps he may have caused some sort of offense – or, given that his eyes were still closed, perhaps Dakota had improbably drifted off to sleep.

Then he sniffed, and brought a hand up to cover his eyes. His shoulders shook minutely against the mattress, breath hitching audibly, and panic blared up through Cavendish’s chest.

“Are you _crying?”_

Dakota sniffled again. “Sorry,” he warbled, voice cracking a little on the ‘y’, “I just–”

Breaking off with a frustrated noise, Dakota sat up, turning as if to get off the bed.

Cavendish knew he wasn’t the best with people; his diction was second to none, and he thought he could be quite convincing in his arguments, but when it came to simple, interpersonal relationships – well, he tended to crash and burn. Still, he’d never made anyone _cry_ before, and knew that if he let Dakota get up and walk away from this exchange without at least trying to remedy whatever it was that had gone wrong, there might be no mending it. So, where words had apparently failed, Cavendish did what came naturally, and acted instead.

As Dakota rounded the mattress, Cavendish stood to intercept him, pulling him into a hug without a second thought. “Don’t be sorry,” he said quietly. “Whatever I said, I– _I’m_ sorry.”

Confoundingly, this only seemed to distress Dakota more, and Cavendish tried not to consider what it was doing to his jacket as his partner dissolved into tears against his front. Instead, he did his best to hold on, and present as much of a comforting presence as possible. He wasn’t sure how Dakota did it – much as the other man could annoy him, he was also very good at talking Cavendish down from anxiety attacks. Now, Cavendish wished he was similarly talented; all he could really do at this point was rub Dakota’s back and shush him when he tried, mostly unintelligibly, to apologize again.

Eventually, Dakota seemed to cry himself out, swaying tiredly and sniffling against Cavendish’s shoulder, and so Cavendish gently prodded him into sitting back down on the mattress with him. “Got it all out?” he asked, offering Dakota his handkerchief.

Dakota gave a congested snort of hollow amusement. “Not really,” he muttered.

“Do you… want to talk about it?” Cavendish suggested hesitantly; it was talking that had gotten them into this mess, after all, but if Dakota felt it would help, Cavendish wouldn’t deny him.

Shrugging, Dakota listed to the side, leaning back into Cavendish. “Haven’t gotten to talk to anyone about Shay in a long time,” he said. “Didn’t want to, at first. Then it just seemed like all anyone could say was what a shame it was I got ‘em killed.”

Cavendish wound an arm around Dakota’s shoulders, but said nothing to refute his claim for fear of setting off another wave of upset. “You could tell me about them, if you want,” he offered instead.

“Probably said too much already. You don’t need this shit on you, Cav,” Dakota sighed.

“I do actually _want_ to know some things about you, you know,” Cavendish huffed. “Why do you think I asked?”

“’cause you wanna know everything,” Dakota replied quickly, sounding for a moment as teasing and light as he usually did. “But I figured once you started hearing the answers, it got way less appealing.”

The answers had been alarming, to say the least, but Cavendish wasn’t ready to back down. “I think,” he began, picking over his words carefully, “you don’t really get to choose what I do or don’t know about you based on how much you think I’ll want to hear it. I’m given to understand that friendship involves learning each other’s less than favorable qualities and still wanting to be together, anyway.”

Dakota gave a tired little chuckle. “Somethin’ like that, yeah.”

“So, I want to know. If you want to talk about it,” Cavendish added hastily.

“That… would be nice,” Dakota said after a long moment.

And that was how Cavendish found himself stretched out on the bed some time later, Dakota curled into his side, one arm tossed around his waist while he snored softly somewhere into the vicinity of Cavendish’s collarbone. Dakota had told him about Shay, about how they were passionate about their job, how they were competent and efficient, but how they were kind and how they loved to joke. They had been a terrible driver, Dakota had noted with fondness, saying that he’d taken over driving most places barely a week into their partnership. He’d talked a little about Camilla, Shay’s little sister, and how she’d been fascinated with their time vehicle any time they came to visit Shay’s family (he mentioned, briefly, that before that one disastrous mission, Shay had taken Dakota home for holidays—Dakota’s own family was too scattered in that timeline to really visit—and that their family had accepted him warmly), and how more than half the things he knew about fixing their own lemon of a vehicle, he had learned from Camilla.

In quieter tones than Cavendish was used to hearing from him, Dakota had talked about how excited they both were for their mission to stop the Mississippi Purchase, how they’d known that was it, the event they both had been working towards, however unknowingly. They’d been excited by the prospect of a future (or present, as the case may have been) without the pall of that one event gone wrong hanging over it – a future Shay had never gotten to see.

Whether the “how” of Shay Callahan’s death was classified or not, Cavendish couldn’t have said; Dakota skipped over it entirely. He glossed over most of his recovery time, spoke a little about the agents they had attempted to partner him with upon his return to fieldwork (about their poor opinion of him, of how he hadn’t been particularly interested in improving it, of how he’d decided to take it easy and enjoy this new timeline and how that had gotten him kicked back to third class), and finally came to the newly graduated recruit they’d assigned to him.

“Didn’t really want a new partner,” Dakota had confided sleepily, “but somethin’ about that guy was different. I didn’t wanna let him down.”

“What… what was different?” Cavendish had asked.

Dakota had only shrugged, pressing his face further into Cavendish’s shoulder. “You’re just– you’re Cavendish.”

Cavendish hadn’t been sure how to respond to that, touched by the vague sentiment, and had settled for tightening his arm around Dakota’s shoulders in acknowledgement. It seemed to have been enough for Dakota, in any case, as he had drifted off shortly afterwards. Cavendish himself lay awake, staring at the shadows cast on the ceiling by the dim lamp in the corner.

He felt odd; heavy and light at once. Dakota’s confessions weighed on him, but he liked that Dakota had confided in him. He felt guilty for enjoying the sudden, easy closeness of his partner (of his _friend,_ wasn’t that a novel thought?) when it came on the back of such emotional turmoil, but reveled in it all the same after the preceding weeks of sharp and stressed behavior. It was nice to know things about Dakota’s past, even if those things weren’t _nice._

Really, Cavendish wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel, or why he was supposed to be feeling it, and he was tired of trying to figure it out.

Just this once, he wondered if it would be okay to let something slide, to worry about it and figure it out later. Hadn’t there been enough revelation for one evening?

Just this once, Cavendish decided, it would be okay to follow Dakota’s lead, appreciate what he had, and take a nap.

So, despite the fact it couldn’t have been much past early evening, Cavendish allowed the drowsy light and the solid warmth of Dakota at his side to lull him off to sleep. Everything would still be there for him to worry about later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have, at this point, developed Cavendish and Dakota's relationship a bit past where it was here in canon. I think. I kinda felt like Cavendish didn't really look at Dakota as someone even potentially capable or respectable until he found out about the Island and, while he definitely could've (should've) learned to respect his friend and partner _without_ learning about some dark past or traumatic secret, Cavendish getting overly curious about the Mississippi Purchase mission namedrop was the whole reason I wrote this entire goddamn story, so here's a Slightly Different version of events


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! The one where the dakavendish part of this fic actually happens!
> 
> Warnings here for some blood and violence, but nothing major

The island was a marvel. Cavendish had no idea Dakota was capable of half the things his paradox clones had accomplished (Dakota confessed they must have taught themselves some of it after coming to the island, because even _he_ didn’t know he was capable of hacking into CCTV camera feeds), but damned if the bizarre society wasn’t surviving in relative comfort. There was sturdy shelter, a series of well-tended gardens, and even a thriving export business; it was hard not to be impressed.

While many of the Dakotas pitched in to assist Doofenschmirtz in building weapons of environmental destruction, a few had insisted on showing Cavendish and “Mainland” Dakota, as they kept referring to him, around the island – “The Grand Tour,” one of the Dakotas called it.

Island life seemed to agree with his friend, Cavendish thought, and he supposed it would; Dakota was allowed to set his own pace here on the island, and seemed content with the straightforward tasks that came with survival. Moreover, there was plenty of sunshine and fresh air, and many of the paradox clones were a darker tan than Cavendish’s own Dakota (then again, weren’t they all his own Dakotas? Cavendish tried not to devote too much thought to it, it gave him a bit of a headache) and seemed to have a somewhat healthier complexion in general. They seemed more laidback than even “Mainland” Dakota; less stressed and more content – though “stressed” wasn’t an adjective Cavendish wouldn’t really have applied to Dakota until seeing his more relaxed island doubles.

Cavendish wasn’t foolish enough to think Dakota had revealed all of his anxieties to him – Cavendish wore his own on his sleeves, whether he wanted to or not, but Dakota was damnably good at locking down on them and pretending as if they weren’t even there. All the same, he’d hoped the revelation of Dakota’s previous partner and the related difficulties would be the bulk of it; he’d been frustrated and confused when Dakota had simply gone back to his usual attitude after that one evening. Whenever he seemed bothered (rarely), Cavendish would ask, but Dakota would only shrug and tell him it was nothing.

It had been maddening. It had a been a little hurtful, even – hadn’t he shown Dakota he was worthy of being trusted?

Now, it made a little more sense.

While one of the Dakotas showed Mainland Dakota the work they’d been doing in one of the gardens (“Y’know, I always did like working outside.” – “I know, right?”), Cavendish took the chance to sidle up to the Dakota who’d been leading the tour. He cleared his throat. “Excuse me?”

Tour Guide Dakota snorted, gently amused. ““Excuse me?” Really, Cav? Maybe I haven’t seen you in a few months, but I’m still me. You never bothered with all the manners and crap with me before.”

“Well, it’s– it’s a little different now, isn’t it?” Cavendish hedged. “What you’ve done for me, it… changes things.”

“Not really.” Tour Guide Dakota shrugged. “I mean, we’ve been doing it for over a year now, so the only thing that’s really changed is that you know. And this is kinda one of the reasons we didn’t tell you, y’know. Figured you’d get all weird about it.”

 _“Weird?_ You’ve changed the timeline hundreds of times to stop me from dying _hundreds of times,_ and then just shipped yourself off to a deserted island to live out the remainder of your days as though you have no regrets at all about what you’ve done. What’s there _not_ to get _weird_ about?” Cavendish demanded.

Tour Guide Dakota regarded Cavendish with a puzzled little smile, the one he got when he thought Cavendish was overreacting and didn’t understand why. “But I don’t have any regrets about it. None of us do.”

“None at all?”

“Nope.”

“But– but you’ve essentially given up your life!”

“Eh. Whatta ya gonna do?”

“But you’re so stressed about it! Not – not _you_ you, but _him_ you,” Cavendish stuttered over the terminology, gesturing to Mainland Dakota standing a little ways away with a Dakota in a banana leaf skirt.

“You can use third person, it’s cool. Makes things less confusing,” Tour Guide Dakota assured him. “And yeah, Mainland Dakota’s kinda stressed, because he knows that you might die again and he’s gonna have to go back and fix it and send another version of himself to the island and he’s gotta do it without you catchin’ on, but… I mean, once you get here, it’s kinda hard to be stressed about shit.”

“Really? You go live on a nice island and suddenly you’re just not worried about life anymore?” Cavendish asked disdainfully.

“Nah, nah – I mean, yeah, the island’s nice and all, and we already try not to worry too much about life, but… it’s just, once we get here, there’s nothin’ left for us to do, y’know? We kinda served our purpose already and now that we’re here, we have a chance to relax. Don’t gotta keep secrets or worry about keepin’ anyone alive but ourselves…” Tour Guide Dakota shrugged. “I dunno, it’s just easier to let things go.”

“I… see,” Cavendish murmured, though he wasn’t entirely sure he did.

Looking back over to the garden patch, Tour Guide Dakota fell quiet for a moment, appearing almost uncomfortable for the first time since they’d begun talking. “I got here before it happened, but I, uh. I heard you know about Shay and all of that now.”

“Not _all_ of it. But,” Cavendish glanced over, but Tour Guide Dakota still wasn’t looking at him, “I know enough.”

Tour Guide Dakota smiled, small and a little rueful, but genuine enough. “Then you gotta know that we’d do anything – I mean _anything_ , Cav, to make sure you’re okay.”

For a moment, Cavendish was thrown back to that evening, to that conversation Cavendish hadn’t recognized for the minefield it was. _It wasn’t your fault_ , Cavendish had stated confidently, only to be confused when he’d upset Dakota more.

Had Dakota been thinking about Shay, then? Or had he been thinking about the hundreds of times Cavendish had died?

“Dakota…”

“Hey!” Another Dakota, this one in a tie-dyed shirt, called their attention, ambling over from the direction of the orange soda factory. “If you guys are done with the tour, we could use a few more hands!”

“Yeah, sure,” Mainland Dakota waved back, returning to the group. “Whatta ya say, Cav? Ready to kick some nutjobber ass?”

Previous conversation shelved for more pressing matters, Cavendish nodded. “I’d say so.”

“Well, technically, no one’s kickin’ any kinda ass yet, we’re still building the planes, but– yeah, I getcha, that was a good line,” Tie-Dye Dakota shrugged.

Fondly, Cavendish rolled his eyes, and followed along to help build the tools with which they would go “kick nutjobber ass.”

-/-/-

“So, uh… you took the whole “island of paradox clones” thing pretty well.”

Cavendish growled, running a hand over his face. “Really, Dakota? You had the whole drive home to address this, even the time after arriving to say something, and you choose _now?”_ He waved his arms at the shadowed state of the room demonstratively; it was only the little nightlight plugged in by the bathroom that kept the darkness at bay.

After the events of the day, after ensuring that everything was as it should have been and that there were no lingering anomalies or Pistachions, after bidding goodbye to new friends and seeing off some older ones, Cavendish and Dakota had both been utterly spent. With all the travel back and forth between time periods, it was difficult to say when they’d last slept, but it felt like ages. They’d driven themselves home in the waning daylight, and by the time the sun had gone down completely they’d shucked well-worn clothes in favor of pajamas and fallen into bed.

Dakota had been almost suspiciously quiet on the way home, mostly speaking just to mention how it felt like he could sleep for a week, and so Cavendish had chalked it up to the same exhaustion he himself was feeling.

Apparently, he’d just been waiting for the most inopportune moment.

“Well, I was gonna wait ‘til we had some sleep, but now I can’t sleep, ‘cause I keep thinking about it. It’s weird, actually, I’m exhausted,” Dakota babbled, “but I also just… wanted to know if we were okay.”

Cavendish sighed. “Has something about my reaction indicated that we’re not?”

“No, but that’s just – that’s the thing. Like I said, you took the whole thing pretty damn well.”

“Well, what did you _expect_ my reaction to be?”

“Uh. Yelling, mostly. Tellin’ me off for fucking with the timeline so much, for breaking one of the really big rules of time travel, I dunno. That kinda stuff. It’s one of the reasons I kinda kept you in the dark,” Dakota said. “Not– not literally, because you’re _literally_ in the dark right now, but you actually know everything.”

“Dakota, you saved my life.”

“Yeah.”

“Hundreds of times.”

“Well, the first time didn’t stick, so…”

“And you thought I’d be _angry?”_

There was a pause.

“Maybe?”

A tumult of replies built up behind Cavendish’s teeth, and he bit down to keep from blurting them out. How could Dakota possibly think Cavendish would be angry to learn how _devoted_ his friend was? And hadn’t they been breaking the rules of the bureau already, given their actions towards pistachios? Did Dakota really think Cavendish wouldn’t do the same, should the occasion call for it?

Carefully, Cavendish sifted his thoughts through the fluff of sleepiness clouding his mind, searching for the right words.

“I have never really considered what I would do if you died. Not even after you told me what happened to your first partner,” Cavendish said quietly. “But that isn’t because I wouldn’t care. I think it’s because… I would be a little lost without you.”

“Really?” Dakota’s questioned carried a certain startled disbelief through the dark.

“Yes. I do believe I would be,” Cavendish replied, sounding surprisingly certain, considering he’d only just come to this conclusion himself. “But, Dakota…”

Slowly, Cavendish slid his hand across the short expanse of mattress between them, until he found Dakota’s arm and wrapped his fingers tightly around it. He wasn’t particularly good with feelings, but he wouldn’t let anyone say that he wasn’t at least _trying_.

“…you have to know that I would do the same for you.”

“You –” Dakota stopped and cleared his throat, possibly attempting to rid it of the choked quality it had acquired, “you would?”

“Of course,” Cavendish promised.

It was quiet again, for just a few moments, before the rustling of sheets alerted Cavendish that Dakota was moving just before he found himself wrapped in a tight hug.

Normally, Cavendish preferred to be the one to initiate any physical contact, and Dakota normally respected that, but this once, Cavendish didn’t mind the breach. Instead, he looped his own arms up around Dakota and reciprocated the hold.

“Thanks, Cav,” Dakota murmured.

Cavendish tsked. “That’s my line, you know.”

“You already said thanks. It’s my turn,” Dakota insisted, and Cavendish could feel the warmth of his breath through the thin material of his pajama top.

Fighting back a shiver, Cavendish loosened his grip on Dakota. “Yes, well, how about we both be grateful and then get some rest?”

“Yeah. Sounds good,” Dakota agreed.

He moved off of Cavendish, withdrawing until they were no longer touching, though he settled himself much closer than where he’d been before. Cavendish began to miss the warmth and weight of Dakota lying half over him as soon as he lost it, and wondered if he might be able to shuffle just a bit closer. Probably not without Dakota noticing.

“G’night, Cav.”

Cavendish made himself settle, reaching for the exhaustion that had been tugging at the back of his consciousness all evening. “Good night, Dakota.”

-/-/-

They were surrounded.

Cavendish could hear people shouting around him, crying out for help, but he couldn’t reach them.

There was Orton, firing at the Pistachions, yelling when he ran out of soda. Cavendish ran for him, but the Pistachions closed around him, and he disappeared in the sea of leaves and branches.

Behind Cavendish, Doofenschmirtz was shouting. Cavendish whirled around and found the man in the clutches of two PIstachions, his weapon destroyed.

Cavendish aimed his own weapon at them, but they were too fast, already hauling Doofenschmirtz off.

Not far away, the platypus made his odd chattering noise, loud and insistent. He seemed to be calling after Doofenschmirtz, but was overwhelmed by enemies on all sides. They overpowered and subdued him before Cavendish could rush to his aid.

Someone else cried out – _Milo._ Cavendish could see him, not far off, Pistachions pulling him away as he called for _somebody, anybody, please–_

Cavendish bolted. He was so close. He dove, reaching for Milo’s hands where they were clawing at the ground, trying to slow his captors down, but he missed. He missed by _inches,_ and Milo was ripped away from him.

Cavendish stared at the spot where Milo had been in utter disbelief. He’d lost Milo. He’d lost everyone. Everyone except–

Scrambling to his feet, Cavendish glanced wildly around the battlefield that the amusement park had become, looking for any sign of his partner. Any sign at all of Dakota.

Cavendish’s heart caught in his throat when he glimpsed that familiar, gaudy tracksuit in all the chaos. There was Dakota, running towards him, urgent and yelling– yelling what? Cavendish couldn’t hear him over the rush of blood in his ears.

It wasn’t until Dakota was nearly on top of him that Cavendish realized what was being said.

_Look out._

Dakota rammed into Cavendish, knocking him back to the ground.

Dazed, Cavendish turned over, searching for Dakota, for the reason Dakota had knocked him prone, and found both.

Cavendish hadn’t noticed the Pistachion advancing on him, hadn’t been looking, had only had eyes for Dakota – but Dakota had seen, and had acted. He’d shoved Cavendish out of the way in the nick of time, and taken the branch that had been meant for Cavendish right through his chest.

The moment drew out like elastic.

Nobody moved. Cavendish couldn’t even breathe.

Dakota’s feet dangled just above the ground, lifted on the appendage thrust through him; Cavendish could see the end of the branch protruding from his back, slick with blood.

The moment snapped, and the Pistachion yanked free, letting Dakota hit the ground in a boneless heap. He didn’t move.

Heedless of the danger still around them, Cavendish was by Dakota’s side in an instant – strange how he could only move so quickly when it was too late.

Gently as he could, Cavendish turned Dakota on his back.

“Dakota?” Cavendish finally found his voice, but Dakota was unable to respond.

His breathing was ugly and wet, like he was sucking mud through a straw, and each exhale brought up blood. Cavendish felt sick.

“Dakota, I’m–” he was what? What could he possible say now? “I– oh, God.”

Dakota coughed, heavy and terrifying, and brought one shaking hand up to pat clumsily at Cavendish’s cheek. His eyes were hazy behind his tinted lenses, and Cavendish suddenly wished dearly that he could see into Dakota’s eyes without that barrier. He reached up instead to take Dakota’s hand in his, only to be yanked back.

“No!” Cavendish clawed at the vines banding his chest, but it was no use.

“Cav…”

He could hear Dakota’s voice now, and struggled harder against the Pistachions dragging him away.

“Cav!”

Cavendish tried to call back, but couldn’t. The vines at his chest squeezed the air from his lungs, and his tongue was lead in his mouth.

“Cav, wake up!”

Wake up?

“C’mon, wake up already!”

Cavendish’s eyes snapped open, disorienting him with the sudden shift from light to dark. He dragged in a breath and found his chest was still constricted.

Panicked, he scrabbled at his chest, yanking away the – blankets?

The texture of fabric was so different from the woody vines he’d expected to find that it gave him a moment of pause.

“Hey, you okay?” Dakota’s voice nearly startled Cavendish out of his skin.

“Dakota?” Cavendish gasped, his voice coming out rougher than he’d expected.

“Yeah,” came Dakota’s immediate response. “Yeah, I’m here.”

Though the panicked whirl of Cavendish’s mind was slowing, though he knew it had only been a dream, the answer knocked him breathless with sudden relief.

When Cavendish didn’t immediately reply, Dakota reached over and patted his shoulder heavily. “Here, lemme get the lights.”

Cavendish didn’t want him to go, but wasn’t able to muster up the words to demand he stay, and so listened instead as he made his way across the small apartment and clicked on the lamp.

And there Dakota stood, in boxer shorts and a t-shirt, his pajamas of choice, squinting in the light and rumpled with sleep, but alive and well. “Better?” Dakota asked, and Cavendish had no idea how to answer. “Yeah, no, probably– probably not. That sounded like a hell of a nightmare.”

Mutely, Cavendish nodded, still trying to catch his breath and calm his heart as Dakota returned to the bed.

“How about we get you untangled? You’re kinda hoggin’ all the blankets anyway, and–”

Quite without his permission, as soon as Dakota was back within reach, Cavendish’s arms snaked out and wrapped around him, pulling him close enough that Cavendish could bury his face in his shoulder.

“Woah–! Okay,” Dakota steadied himself with one hand against the mattress, the other coming up to rest on Cavendish’s back. “Okay, we can do this, too. This is good.”

“You… you were _dead,”_ Cavendish mumbled, even though he knew it wasn’t true, even though it hadn’t really happened, because he’d _felt_ it.

“Nah, I’m right here, I’m fine,” Dakota told him, soothing a hand up and down his back. “I’m fine.”

The fisting of his hands in Dakota’s t-shirt was Cavendish’s only answer.

“Besides, even if somethin’ did happen to me, you’ve got a whole island full’a backups,” Dakota teased.

A flash of irritation seared through Cavendish, and he thumped a fist against Dakota’s back. “Don’t say that!” He barked. “Don’t even joke about it! Don’t you _dare.”_

Dakota jolted with the force of Cavendish’s rebuke, and his hand went still for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “You’re right. Bad joke. I’m sorry.”

Cavendish drew in a shuddering breath and let it out, sighing into Dakota’s collarbone, and could feel a shiver go through Dakota in turn. Cavendish remembered then that he had, apparently, stolen the blankets. He would give them back in just a moment.

Just as soon as he was ready to let go.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed—funny, that; he always tried to be aware of the passage of time, considering his occupation—before he could bring himself to pull away from the sound of Dakota’s breathing and the feel of him whole beneath his hands, but Cavendish eventually managed. It surprised him a little that he had to contend for a moment with the grip Dakota had on him as well, his arm having cinched around Cavendish’s back without either of them really noticing.

Sitting up from the slouch he’d pushed himself into in order to fairly wrap himself around Dakota, Cavendish was struck for a moment by how much shorter the other man was. It was so easy to forget that Dakota, even with his heavier build, was _smaller_ than him; he put off such an air of calm satisfaction with the world – a certain brand of confidence and ease that stated he could get along in any circumstances, and it always made him seem bigger than he really was. Only when that calm and ease was stripped away did he really seem his height; like after accidentally blowing up Earth’s second moon, like when Cavendish had pressed him into talking about his first partner, like when he was lying prone and coughing up– no.

Like right now.

Dakota looked as wrecked as Cavendish felt: exhausted and disheveled and uncertain of what to do next, and Cavendish suddenly found that he wasn’t quite ready to pull away after all. He wanted to be close to Dakota, and closer still.

Again, almost entirely without his permission, Cavendish’s hands moved; one smoothed up the arm Dakota was still bracing against the mattress, coming to rest on his shoulder, while the other came up to cup the blunt edge of Dakota’s jaw, and then Cavendish followed through with what felt like the next logical step and leaned down to kiss Dakota.

It was soft and natural and lovely for all of three seconds, before Cavendish’s brain caught up with his body and he jerked away from Dakota, startled and ashamed by his own actions.

Dakota blinked, a little dazed. “Cav?”

Cavendish shook his head. “I– I’m so sorry, I–”

“What’s to be sorry about?’ Dakota asked, brows furrowed with genuine confusion.

“I shouldn’t have– I was taking advantage and it was presumptuous and I– I shouldn’t have.” Cavendish stumbled over his words as Dakota watched with mild concern.

“Taking advantage of what?”

“You, this situation, I don’t know! You’re exhausted, and–”

“So’re you.”

“Yes, well, I still shouldn’t have presumed. It was… I crossed a line.”

“I dunno, I’m not sure so there was much of a line to cross.”

Cavendish blinked at Dakota, who held his gaze, if somewhat sheepishly.

“Excuse me?” Cavendish finally asked.

“Eh, I mean…” Dakota shrugged, running a hand nervously through his hair. “What, you think I just… that I just fucked with the timeline hundreds of times and went back to save you because you’re– you’re _you_ and I couldn’t _not_ do it and – you think I did all that and I’m _not_ in love with you?”

“In… love?” Cavendish repeated faintly.

“I thought that – that, uh, was kinda obvious.” Dakota glanced away at last, his face growing faintly pink in the dim light, and Cavendish couldn’t help but stare. He couldn’t think of a single time he’d ever seen Dakota blush in the entire time they’d known one another. It was rather fetching. “Was it not obvious?”

“I… I just thought you were an incredibly devoted friend,” Cavendish admitted.

“Well, don’t get me wrong, you’re my best friend!” Dakota insisted quickly. “Whether you wanna… whatever you wanna do, I mean, we’ll– we’ll still be friends, right? Just if you, uh–”

“Wait, hold on,” Cavendish cut in, holding up a hand for quiet; he was far too tired to process things as quickly as he otherwise might have. “Are you telling me… my advances would be welcome?”

Dakota snorted. “Way past “welcome,” Cav. What’s more than welcome? I dunno, just– _super welcome_. I don’t even–”

Cavendish had been searching for the entirety of their partnership for a way to stop Dakota’s mindless babbling, and apparently kisses were splendidly effective.

Though he’d had just as little notice as the first time Cavendish had kissed him, Dakota responded quickly and enthusiastically, tilting his head up to lessen the slightly awkward angle and tugging Cavendish as close as he could manage by the front of his pajama shirt.

The kiss didn’t end so much as it melted into the next one, and the next one after that, until Cavendish found one of his hands buried in Dakota’s already bed-mussed curls and the other braced on the mattress beside Dakota’s head. When they’d become practically horizontal, he had no idea, but the press of Dakota’s chest against his own was grounding as the gentle kisses threatened to float Cavendish away.

They finally parted, though Cavendish couldn’t pull back far with both of Dakota’s hands curled against his back. Catching his breath, Cavendish was content to be held close until Dakota yawned in his face.

Screwing up his nose, Cavendish pulled out of the circle of Dakota’s arms while Dakota snickered. “Thank you for that,” Cavendish drawled.

“Sorry,” Dakota mumbled sleepily. “More tired than I thought.”

Cavendish hummed; he had no idea what time it was, nor how long he’d been asleep before the nightmare had woken him, but now that the adrenaline had faded, he was flagging quickly himself. “Let’s get some sleep, then.”

Dakota got up to switch off the light while Cavendish untwisted the blankets and spread them back out over the bed. When Dakota returned, he wasted no time on his own side of the bed, instead sidling up to Cavendish as Cavendish had wanted to do to him earlier in the night and placing one arm lightly around Cavendish’s waist.

“This okay?” Dakota asked quietly.

“Hrm,” Cavendish grumbled vaguely with faux consideration before wrapping his arm around Dakota and pulling him closer, until they were pressed comfortably together beneath the blankets. “Yes, I believe so.”

He could feel Dakota shake with silent, tired laughter against him, before he began to relax into sleep. Feeling the slow, even breathing beneath his arm and feathering out against the collar of his shirt, Cavendish began to relax as well. Whatever dreams he had, he knew he was safe here – loved, even. And wasn’t that truly something?

Cavendish wasn’t entirely sure if he was in love with Dakota, but he felt like he could be, given a little time. He already cared deeply in a way he’d never quite felt for anyone before; he imagined he didn’t have far to fall.

With these warm thoughts in mind, Cavendish drifted off to sleep.

-/-/-

Morning brought with it doubts.

As Cavendish went through his morning routine, he couldn’t help but turn the events of the night over and over and over in his mind. Where _had_ the impulse to kiss Dakota come from? And why had Dakota let him do it? Was Dakota really in love with him, or was he just being kind?

(That last question sounded a little farfetched even in Cavendish’s mind, but Dakota was a kind sort of person, so could he really rule it out as a possibility? He wasn’t sure.)

Cavendish wouldn’t deny his own feelings, whatever they were, now that they’d wormed their way to the surface, but was any of this really a good idea? Or was it an impulse-borne mistake in the making?

By the time he’d gotten to his morning cup of coffee (Dakota always tsked at him for the amount of caffeine he took in, telling him he was high strung enough already, and though Cavendish had previously dismissed this as teasing, he now began to wonder if there wasn’t some grain of true caring in the admonition), Cavendish was gripping the cup tightly and tapping an absent pattern on the rim with anxious fingers as his thoughts chased themselves in unproductive circles. He leaned against the counter of their tiny kitchen, staring at the heinously-patterned vinyl flooring without really seeing and sipping from his cup only as a matter of habit, and was surprised when Dakota came into his field of vision.

“Hey,” Dakota said, ducking his head to try and catch Cavendish’s eyes.

“Good morning,” Cavendish replied, nodding once and then turning his gaze to his coffee; this was more awkward than he’d expected. Or maybe it was just him.

Dakota watched him for a moment, uncharacteristically pensive, before stepping further into Cavendish’s space. “Hey,” he said again, this time crooking his finger to beckon Cavendish closer, as if to whisper something in his ear, “c’mere.”

Brows furrowed, curious as to what Dakota could possibly need to whisper to him in their own home, Cavendish leaned in.

As soon as he was close enough, Dakota moved forward and pressed a kiss to the corner of Cavendish’s mouth, lightning quick.

Dakota was grinning as he pulled back, watching Cavendish blink at him in startlement. “Stop worryin’ so much, man. This is a good thing,” Dakota told him. “We’re good.”

It was exactly the sort of nonchalant attitude toward potential problems that Cavendish had come to expect from Dakota, the usual shrug and “what can you do” routine, but for once, it didn’t chafe at him. On some occasions, it was possible Dakota had the right idea (it was, at least, statistically likely that he had to be right eventually). Cavendish found himself smiling back; it was hard not to, really.

“We _are_ good,” he decided with a slight nod.

“Hell yeah, we are,” Dakota said brightly, looking so pleased that Cavendish had to resist the urge to lean down and find out what that pleasure tasted like from Dakota’s mouth.

Actually – he _didn’t_ have to resist the urge, did he?

As soon as the realization hit, Cavendish placed his mug on the counter behind him before reaching forward to reel Dakota in for another kiss, softer and deeper than the quick peck Dakota had given him moments ago. It ended up tasting more of coffee and toothpaste than of pleasure or happiness or any other romantic paperback drivel, but it was wonderful all the same.

“Good,” Cavendish murmured once they had pulled apart.

“Yeah,” Dakota agreed, making no effort to fight the wide grin trying to inch its way back across his face.

Cavendish let him go, reaching again for his coffee, while Dakota went to poke around in the refrigerator. “So, what’s the plan for today? ‘cause I gotta say, after all that shit we went through yesterday, I think we deserve a break,” Dakota said, his voice muffled slightly from the inside of the fridge.

Cavendish’s stomach sank as a new set of worries hit to him. “We have to submit a report on yesterday’s incident,” he recalled.

“Oh, yeah. Guess we should.” Dakota shrugged, giving up the mostly empty fridge as a lost cause and shutting the door.

“This isn’t going to be pretty. The rules we broke, the trouble we caused…” Cavendish shuddered to think of Mr. Block’s reaction to their report, beginning to tap out another nervous rhythm against the lip of his mug.

“Hey, you were so nice and worry-free there for a minute. Seriously, it’ll be alright,” Dakota insisted.

“You can’t possibly know that,” Cavendish huffed.

“Nah, but I feel it. Call it a gut instinct,” Dakota said, patting his stomach.

Cavendish cocked a dubious eyebrow at him. “Are you sure that’s not just hunger speaking?”

“Could be,” Dakota admitted with an amiable shrug. “Hey, there’s an idea! Let’s go get breakfast. We can worry about the report after that.”

“Dakota…”

“C’mon, Cav, even you gotta eat. And like I said, we deserve a break.”

Dakota looked so hopefully at Cavendish, smiling with such sincere invitation, that he couldn’t help but cave in. “Oh, fine. But I don’t want breakfast burritos again. I get to pick where we go,” Cavendish said.

“Deal! I’ll grab the keys,” Dakota crowed, moving away to search for where they had left the keys to their time vehicle in their exhausted stupor last night.

Cavendish shook his head, turning to rinse his mug in the sink. Their problems wouldn’t magically be solved with breakfast—with waffles, specifically, because Cavendish was definitely taking them somewhere with waffles—but he supposed writing that dreaded report could wait another hour or two. Maybe they really _did_ deserve a break – they had saved the world after all.

Dishes taken care of, Cavendish joined Dakota where he was waiting by the front door, extending his hand for the keys. Dakota handed them over willingly, but called Cavendish’s attention before he could make it out the door.

“Hey, y’know…” Dakota trailed off uncertainly for a moment, “I got you. Y’know that, right? I’ve always got you.”

Momentarily thrown by the sentiment, Cavendish gave Dakota a small and hopefully reassuring smile. “I know.” He did know that, now. “And I– I’ve got you, too.”

Dakota smiled, as though Cavendish had just banished all the cares in the world. “Then y’know, Cav? It’s gonna be alright,” he said, offering his hand for Cavendish to take.

With only a beat of hesitation, Cavendish did.

He wasn’t as assured as Dakota of the times ahead, but as he took Dakota’s hand, Cavendish could almost feel the certainty as his own. Even if things didn’t turn out – they had each other, didn’t they? There to pick one another up when they stumbled and push one another along when they needed it – yes, Cavendish thought to himself.

It would be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for coming along, guys! And thank you for your kudos and comments and bookmarks! It's been so cool to know that some people were enjoying this as I posted!

**Author's Note:**

> If you have thoughts, I'd like to hear them! If you don't, that's fine too! If you're on Tumblr, you can find me [here!](http://solarmorrigan.tumblr.com/)


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